


A long way to go

by usingmymadeupname



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hydra (Marvel), Irondad, Kidnapped Peter Parker, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Has a Family, Peter Parker Meets the Avengers, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Worried Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-03-17 11:12:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 38,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18964102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usingmymadeupname/pseuds/usingmymadeupname
Summary: The personal intern thing had started as a way to prove Pepper wrong. Now, Tony was starting to care for this kid more than he ever thought he would. Tony and Peter’s relationship is starting to evolve into something more than mentor and mentee and along the way, they might discover some new things about each other.





	1. Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, another Iron Dad fic because I’m not over Endgame yet so I’m just ignoring it. Even though I already watched it like 3 times. I hope you like this, I have a general idea of where this is going. Most of this is Tony and Peter’s relationship evolving, some events are inspired by the MCU movies but not everything that happens is accurate, I changed a few things for my story. 
> 
> This is set after Civil War, the team fought but it didn’t end with them splitting. Tony doesn’t now Peter is Spiderman and he was not in the Germany fight. Homecoming hasn’t happened yet and the rest will be addressed on the story. 
> 
> English isn’t my first language so I’m sorry for any mistakes, try to ignore them or tell me about them so I can fix them. 
> 
> Enjoy the story.

Tony was starting to doze off. Pepper had dragged him out of the lab. Again. For the fifth time that week. And it was only Wednesday. To be fair, he had kinda promised he would be out of the lab more, to be more present at SI, not leaving everything to Pepper. Now, in retrospective, he should have just found an excuse to never come to a board meeting ever again. Were those things boring? Hell yes. Was he already looking for a way out of this thing? He totally was. He had no idea what that guy was talking about. Maybe something important. Or maybe not. He honestly didn’t care. It had barely been 30 minutes and he was ready to run out of there at any opportunity he had. 

10 minutes later he was seriously considering inventing some sort of world ending catastrophe just so he could have an excuse to get out of there, when Pepper called off the meeting, she must have noticed he wasn’t paying attention. Oops. They accorded to finish the details some other day and after they all left, she turned around to look at him and he knew he was about to be lectured by her.

“Tony, you weren’t even trying to pay attention! You were about to fall asleep or get out of that door running if it had lasted another minute”

“That obvious, huh?” She gave him an unimpressed look. “I know, Pep, I know, but it was boring the hell out of me, I couldn’t concentrate even if I wanted to, all that talk for what?”

“Well, since I just ended this meeting short, I just want you to know we still have to talk to the head of R&D, about the latest-“

“Oh no. Nope. Not happening. I’m done for the day. No more business or meetings for me. I’m going to the lab.”

“TONY! It’s Research and Development, it will be short, it’s not like it’s another board meeting”

“It’s the same for me Pep, I don’t want to go”

Just as Pepper was about to talk back, FRIDAY spoke in the conference room they were in.

“Excuse me, Miss Potts, but Rachael, the guide from the field trip tour is asking for permission to the lower labs at the end of their trip where the interns work, she said since it was a STEM school you had discussed the possibility of them going to see the labs”

Tony was about to leave to his lab, using this distraction to escape the argument with Pepper, but before he got the chance to, she looked at him and said: “Tony, you are not going to your lab, or so help me I will schedule a meeting for you every day for the next month” Then she talked to the AI “Yes FRIDAY, let them up, but be sure to keep an eye on them”

“Of course Miss Potts”

“Now Tony-“

But Tony wasn’t listening to her. He was already thinking his way out of this. If Pepper wouldn’t let him go to his lab and he definitely didn’t want to go to another meeting with R&D or whatever it was Pepper wanted him to do, then he was going to do a surprise appearance at the intern’s labs. 

“You know what Pep? I actually feel intrigued by the young minds that might be in there. They are Stark Industries interns after all. So I’m going to those lower labs to check it out”

“Is that really what you are willing to do to get out of your real work? Because I know for a fact that you couldn’t care less about the intern’s labs or their work”

“Well, maybe I am interested now.”

“And why would that be”

Tony hadn’t planned this far ahead, so he just went with the first thing he could come up with. “Because… I… want… an intern of my own”

Pepper just stared at him. She knew he was lying. How couldn’t she? He could not stand anyone working with him. She was probably looking for a way to call him out on his lie when suddenly, she got a smirk on her face and that could only mean she had an idea he wouldn’t like.

“Oh really? Well, then we need to get you an intern, right away. Why don’t we go to the intern’s labs to see if anyone is good enough for you?”

“What are you planning?”

“We go down there, we make a little test to see their abilities and talents, then you choose an intern and you have to work with him for at least a month. Since you said you _want_ an intern”

“And what if, you know, _hypothetically_ , I didn’t choose an intern? You know, what if i don’t like them or they aren’t at my level”

“Then why would you say you want to check the intern lab, if you don’t think they are good enough?”

She had caught him on his lie. Now he could either accept his defeat and go to another meeting or he could pretend he liked one of the interns for a month just to prove her wrong. He was deciding the pros and cons of his options, when he decided he could try to take advantage of this.

“Fine” He finally decided. “I will choose an intern to not only work with me in the lab but also, I will teach him some things, you know, to take my role seriously, like a mentor, so I would have to spend time with him or her, so I won’t have that much free time to be at SI.” He said with a smirk on his own.

“Oh, so that is how it is, huh? Okay. If you choose an intern and do all of those things you just said you would, because you would be such a great mentor, then I will shorten your time at SI meetings for you to have the patience to teach your chosen mentee”

He could work with that. Now the only problem was to find someone he could stand for longer than 5 minutes without wanting to punch them in the face. That was his real challenge. This whole plan working and proving Pepper wrong, depended on finding someone he could tolerate. 

“You got a deal Miss Potts” He said smiling

“It’s a deal Tony. Now, I have no idea how you plan on keeping up with that, since I know you don’t like company in your lab, so good luck”

“Yeah, whatever, let’s go”

 

\-------------------▫

Peter was really excited. They were on a field trip in Stark Industries. He was at the Stark Tower. He hoped that this would go better than the last one at Oscorp where he got bitten by a radioactive spider that got him superpowers. It was only the decathlon team this time though. They got it as a reward for winning the last competition. They had a basic tour of the place, and got to look around some cool tech. They even got permission to go to some of the intern’s labs at the end of the trip to see what they were working on.

“They are working on some improvised projects as a task given to them by our CEO Pepper Potts” Said Rachael, their tour guide. “I believe they had a couple of hours to come up with something to show her and I think those two hours are almost up, so feel free to look around, don’t touch anything and don’t disturb them, we will meet back here in 20 minutes when the tour finishes.”

Peter didn’t have to be told twice. He and Ned went to look around the tables looking for interesting projects, as quietly as they could, since all the interns were working on something. After a couple of minutes, Ned saw a project with computer coding and went there to check it out. Peter kept looking at their works when something caught his attention. At the back of the room, in a corner, there was this intern building something that looked like a 3D hologram projector, but by the looks of it, he wasn’t completely succeeding because he had a frustrated look on his face. 

Peter kept looking at that intern trying to assemble the pieces and wires when he noticed a small miscalculation, a little mistake and against his better judgement, he got closer to the intern and said “Hey, that hologram you are working on, it’s really cool” 

The intern looked up at him “Eem thanks, who are you?”

“Oh, I’m just here on a field trip from my school, sorry to bother you, but you looked kinda overwhelmed”

“Yeah, well, our boss gave us this random project out of nowhere, I’ve barely had time to decide what I wanted to do and now I only have like 20 minutes left and this thing is still not working, so yeah, I’m a little overwhelmed”

“You got most of it ready but maybe I can help, I mean, you are doing a great job and I know I’m just a kid and you probably don’t want to hear whatever I have to say but-“

“Kid, I don’t have anything to lose, unless you make it worse, so give it a shot, what do you thing is wrong?”

“I think, well, these wires, you connected them wrong. Here, I’ll show you”

After a little tweaking, Peter was able to successfully put the wires together and even added a little extra feature for it to work better. 

“Wow kid, thanks. I didn’t think you would be able to do it”

“It was nothing, you had most of it figured out anyway”

“Well, thanks anyway… ?”

“Oh, I’m Peter. Peter Parker.”

“Hey Peter. I’m Alex. Thank you for your help”

“It was nothing, really.”

“How did you do it? I mean, I’m in college and I wasn’t able to figure it out, so how did you know what to do?”

“I’m really into this sort of thing, I like building things using pieces of tech as a hobby so I guess it helped?”

“It really did Peter, I’m impressed, you are very smart”

“I’m just glad I could help. Now, I got to get back to my field trip, nice to meet you Alex. And good luck with your project”

He met with Ned and saw some of the other projects that were almost finished. When their time was up, they went to the meeting point with the rest of the group to finish their field trip and Peter was glad he was able to enjoy this one, with nothing out of the ordinary happening. Just when they were about to go, the elevator arrived and Tony Stark walked out of it.


	2. New intern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter was speechless. Tony Stark was asking him to be his personal intern. He was going to work with Tony Stark!  
> “Are you serious? Mr. Stark! I would love to!! This is the greatest day of my life!”  
> Tony smiled at the kid’s enthusiasm. “Okay, kid, welcome to the Stark Industries Internship Program.”

Tony was watching the interns work from his penthouse to decide which one he would choose. They had no idea about the real reason behind this sudden project but it was better this way. Tony didn’t really care what they were building, he was more interested in how they were doing it, the way they worked, how they found solutions, how they dealt with frustration and the pressure of time, he needed to measure their reactions and see if any of them would be able to be good company for his lab, but for now, he felt really disappointed. Not because they weren’t smart. They must be if they were working there at all. But none of them caught Tony’s attention. None of them stood out from the others and that was making his decision kinda hard, since he couldn’t see himself working with any of them for a month.

He was starting to lose hope and accept Pepper was right, when a bunch of younger kids entered the lab. Apparently those were the kids FRIDAY mentioned from a field trip. They were just looking around the lab, gaping at the different projects when he saw in the corner of the lab one of the kids standing in front of one of the lab tables, watching an intern trying –and failing- to finish his work and assemble some tech he was struggling with. Tony wondered why the kid looked so interested on it, he looked no older than 15, probably still in high school, so there was no way he could understand what that intern was working on. 

When suddenly the kid talked “Hey, that hologram you are working on, it’s really cool”

The intern looked up at the kid “Eem thanks, who are you?”

“Oh, I’m just here on a field trip from my school, sorry to bother you, but you looked kinda overwhelmed” 

So this kid was definitely on high school. But why was he talking to an intern? He looked kinda interested on whatever the intern was working on, maybe he had questions about it. 

“Yeah, well, our boss gave us this random project out of nowhere, I’ve barely had time to decide what I wanted to do and now I only have like 20 minutes left and this thing is still not working, so yeah, I’m a little overwhelmed”

“You got most of it ready but maybe I can help, I mean, you are doing a great job and I know I’m just a kid and you probably don’t want to hear whatever I have to say but-“

What? This kid thought he could accomplish something not even this random college intern could do? What was this kid thinking?

“Kid, I don’t have anything to lose, unless you make it worse, so give it a shot, what do you thing is wrong?”

“I think, well, these wires, you connected them wrong. Here, I’ll show you”

Turns out the kid was right, after working on the pieces for a while, the kid had successfully put the pieces together. The intern was impressed. Hell, even Tony was impressed. How was a high school kid able to do that, when a college student had failed? He had no idea. They kept talking between them when the intern asked the kid for his name.

“Oh, I’m Peter. Peter Parker.”

Peter Parker. 

“Hey FRI, look into this kid, Peter Parker for me”

“Sure thing boss”

In a screen in front of him, appeared all information available on Peter Parker. Born August 10 2001. 15 years old. Both his parents were dead, on a plane crash and sent to live with his uncle and aunt at age 6. There was a little article about how his uncle was murdered almost a year ago while Peter was with him. He was currently living with his aunt in Queens. Attending Midtown School of Science and Technology. And he was one of the best students there. He had not only almost perfect scores, he also was in the Decathlon team and Robotics club. So the kid was smart. 

Tony smiled to himself. He just found his intern. Sure the kid was not really one of the interns at SI but he could work it out. None of the official interns had caught his attention but this kid did, so it must be for a reason. The kid looked clever enough. He found a solution in a short amount of time. He had helped the intern when he didn’t have to, just because he could, which was pretty kind and selfless, Tony was impressed with his age too, it kind of reminded him of himself at that age. 

It was in that moment when Pepper arrived on their floor and asked “So, their time is almost up, have you decided who is going to be your personal intern yet?” 

“Oh yes I have.” And he pointed to the kid on the screen. “This kid. Peter Parker” 

“Tony, that really is a kid. He is not an official intern of SI and he is not even in college, he is part of the group from a high school field trip” 

“I know Pep, but I just saw this kid solve something not even a college intern was able to do, so I think he is smart, and even though he is a high school kid, I think he has potential, we could just make him an official intern and that is it”

“Tony, he is a minor. We don’t hire high schoolers”

“But you said I could choose my intern, and I choose him. I have to bear with him for a month, so if it is not him, then the deal is off”

Pepper looked like she wanted to argue, but at the end decided she should just let him be, he was not going to keep this intern very long either way.

“Fine, go tell a 14 year old kid he is going to be your new intern and ask permission from his parents”

“He is 15 actually and I will figure out that permission part later” And he headed for the elevator

\-------------------▫

 

Peter looked up to the elevator and saw Tony Stark walking towards their group. Everyone was looking at the man, as if they could not believe he was really in front of them. Peter was pretty sure his jaw was hanging open in shock. The man was like his personal hero. Not only because he was Iron Man and he had saved him all those years ago at the Stark Expo with the Hammer drones, but also, he was one of the brightest minds and coolest inventors the world had, Peter looked up to him a lot, the man was everything he wanted to be someday. 

He went to talk with their tour guide and then with Mr. Harrington. He could have eavesdropped the conversation with his enhanced hearing but he was a bit starstruck to pay attention to anything.  
Eventually he noticed Ned was talking to him. “Dude! We are in front of Iron Man!! Why do you think he is here? What do you think he is talking about with Mr. Harrington? This is so cool, man! I mean, it’s Tony Stark!! I didn’t even think he would be on the tower, can you believe it!?!?

Ned’s rambling was interrupted when the man spoke. “Where is Peter Parker?”

All of his friends turned to look at him. Did he hear that right? Did Tony Stark just called him by his name? While he was deciding if this was real or not, Ned gave him a slight push towards the man, as if to tell him to not leave Iron Man waiting. He gave his teacher a panicked look but Mr. Harrington just gave him an encouraging smile. 

“Eem, it’s me sir. I’m Peter Parker.”

“Hey Peter, I’m Tony, but you probably already knew that. I would like to have a word with you if you don’t mind, your teacher here already gave me his permission to keep you a little longer to discuss some things and i’ll make sure you get home later, so your friends don’t have to wait for you while we talk”

“Uum, yeah, sure.” He had no idea what this was about, but he was not about to say no to Tony Stark. He waved Ned and his group goodbye and was left with his childhood hero.

“Okay kid, walk with me, c’mon, we don’t have all day”

He was guided by Mr. Stark to the elevator he had come in before. It wasn’t the one they had used on their field trip. It was probably his personal elevator and Peter started to panic a little. He had no idea where the man was taking him. It’s not that he didn’t trust the guy, I mean, he is a literal superhero, but what could he possibly want to talk with him? Maybe, somehow he knew he was Spiderman? No, that couldn’t be possible. He hadn’t done anything related to Spiderman while being on the tour. Maybe he was notified by the interns that he had helped someone, was that not allowed? Helping or talking to the interns? The tour guide had said to not distract them and to not touch anything, so maybe-

His panicked thoughts were interrupted when they reached their destination “Kid, you look like you are going to pass out, are you okay?”

“Yeah Mr. Stark, I’m fine. I was just wondering, you know, why am I here? I mean, I was just on a field trip. Is this about the intern lab? Was I not allowed to help the intern? I mean, they told us not to touch anything and not distract the interns but I just couldn’t not help him, I’m really sorry if I wasn’t supposed to do that and-“

Tony saw that Peter was playing with something in his fingers, probably because he was nervous or something, the kid could talk a mile per minute and Tony was trying to keep up with everything he said.

“Wow kid, stop rambling and don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong. Actually, it was because of what you did that you are here now but it’s nothing bad, I promise. Or at least I don’t think it’s something bad, that sort of depends if you want to do this or not”

“Do what?”

“Well kid, that project those interns where working on out of the blue, they were because I kinda made a bad decision and ended up with the need of a personal intern, so Pepper made them do whatever it is they were doing as a test, but none of them caught my attention. Until you got in the room and helped that intern.”

“Wait, what? Me? Why would you be interested in me? I mean, I’m honored Mr. Stark, really, but I’m just in high school. I’m sure you can find someone better than me.”

“That is where you are wrong kiddo, I don’t really need an intern but I got into this mess with Pepper and to prove her wrong I need someone to help me out in the lab, for at least a month, so what do you say? Do you want to be my new personal intern?”

Peter was speechless. Tony Stark was asking him to be his personal intern. Was he dreaming? This was too good to be true. He would have less time to be Spiderman, after school, but it was worth it. He was going to work with Tony Stark!

“Are you serious? Mr. Stark! I would love to!! This is the greatest day of my life!”

Tony smiled at the kid’s enthusiasm. “Okay kid, welcome to the Stark Industries Internship Program.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here is the second chapter. Happy, Pepper and Rhodey will be on next chapter. I'll try to post again on Monday or Tuesday. Have a nice day :)


	3. You look familiar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhodey wasn’t really paying attention, now that he was looking at the kid, there was something about him, something that looked familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was exactly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So i managed to finish this chapter sooner than i thought i would so here you have it :)

Peter couldn’t believe this was actually happening to him. He had a Stark Internship as Tony Stark’s personal intern. After talking with the man and heading home, he told May everything about it and then called Ned. His best friend could barely believe the news himself as he started screaming on the other side of the phone. 

When he got to school the other day, everyone knew already what had happened the day before and several kids in different classes asked him what Tony Stark wanted to talk to him about. Peter told them the truth, that the man had offered him an internship at SI but not everyone believed him, specially Flash, who said it was only his way to try and get attention. He didn’t mind though. He was really happy and nothing Flash said could change that. 

To arrange the internship, Mr. Stark had talked with May, since she was his guardian and they needed her permission. She wasn’t thrilled with the idea but it was a great opportunity for Peter and he used his puppy eyes on her. He really wanted this, so eventually she did let him do it. They agreed to let Peter go to the tower a couple of times a week. He had decathlon practice on Mondays and Wednesdays, so the internship was left for Tuesdays and Thursdays. He would leave Fridays and the weekends to do his homework and going out as Spiderman, but if he had the time to go patrolling between days of the week, he would do it. 

At first, Peter was a bit starstruck and silently fanboying over everything he saw in the labs while working with Tony. The technology and the bots and just everything there was amazing. He even got to meet Miss Potts one day. After a couple of weeks, he started getting used to the fact he was working with Tony Stark in his personal lab. He didn’t only asked him to build and fix things, he actually took the time to teach him a thing or two when he was kinda lost on a project. He even let him take a look at one of the Iron Man armors at some point, to help with one of the thrusters. He really appreciated it and being with Mr. Stark in the lab had become one of his favorite things to do. 

Happy was the chosen driver to pick the kid up from school those days and bring him to the tower. How the kid would talk and ramble about anything that came to his mind was annoying at first but after a couple of weeks of getting used to the kid, he was starting to grow fond of him, even though he would never admit it out loud and he really exasperated him sometimes. 

\-------------------▫

They fell into a nice rhythm in the lab. Tony was kinda surprised that he actually enjoyed his time with Peter as his intern. The kid was smart. At first, Tony thought he was going to get bored because not everyone could keep up on the lab with him, but Peter was something else. He didn’t know everything, as he expected, the kid was just in high school. But a lot of his knowledge was not the one a normal high school kid would have. Either way, he took it upon himself to teach Peter some things to be the good mentor he had told Pepper he was. 

When working on some tech, the kid not only helped him build it, but he also suggested ideas that actually worked, his mind seemed to work a mile per minute and his ability to find solutions left Tony quite impressed. For a 15 year old kid, he was kind of a genius, the kid even reminded him of himself at that age. 

He even let the kid fix one of his thrusters from a gauntlet, not because he couldn’t do it, it was really an easy fix for him but he wanted to see what Peter could come up with. And he was not disappointed, the kid looked so happy to work on an Iron Man armor and he fixed it in less than 15 minutes. 

The month was almost up and Tony found himself wondering what he would do without the kid there, he had gotten used to his presence and he was actually having a healthier routine to eat and sleep because of the kid, since he couldn’t starve him to death or leave the lab too late at night.

He was having dinner at the tower with Pepper, she was cooking and he was pretending to listen to some news on the TV when she mentioned it to him. “Tony, I have to admit, I am quite impressed. You were able to actually mentor Peter and have him as your intern for a month. To be honest, I didn’t think you would make it this far”

“Wow, I’m wounded, so little faith in me Pep”

“You know what I mean, you are great but you don’t usually work well with others. So what are you going to do about Peter?”

“What do you mean? What about Peter?”

“Tony, I have seen you with him. You always have a smile on your face when the kid is talking and rambling about something. You care about him. And I don’t think that just because the month is up and you proved me wrong that you are just going to send Peter away”

Tony had already thought about it. A lot. And he had decided he wanted to keep Peter with him. The kid was great. After everything with Ultron, the Accords and the fight between the Avengers, he didn’t think he had much to give the world anymore. But Peter looked at him differently, like a hero. No matter what mistakes he had made in the past or what the rest of the world thought about him. The kid looked up to him so much and Tony wanted to be worthy of that admiration. It gave him something to live up to.

In that moment something caught his attention on the TV, the news were showing a burning building in Queens, the firemen were already there but people were still trapped inside. They mentioned someone named Spiderman being at the scene, helping people out of the building. Whoever this guy was, he was able to stick to the walls and he had some sort of webbing coming out of his hands. He had never seen him before. Was this some new vigilante? He would look him up later. For now, he was thinking of his internship with Peter, so he ignored the TV and faced Pepper.

“You know what Pep? I don’t want Peter gone. I want to keep him as my intern”

Pepper gave him a soft smile. “I know. I think is for the best. You both are good for each other”

“What is that supposed to mean”

“It isn’t supposed to mean anything. It’s just that you two make each other happy. And it’s good to see you like that”

“I’ll tell him tomorrow, when he comes over”

“Yeah, you do that. And don’t forget Rhodey is coming tomorrow to discuss the Accords, or whatever is left of them anyway”

“What about the Accords?

“You know, since the ‘Rogue Avengers’ as the media likes to call them, are currently living at the compound, which you own, they are arranging to move their equipment from the tower, so Rhodey will be here to talk that out with you.”

“Huh. I had totally forgot about it.”

“Yeah, I know you did. Just don’t complicate things, okay? We are working this out, you got them pardoned, you renegotiated some terms with the UN about the Avengers but you still have to work on fixing the relationships between all of you and that is a problem for another day.”

 

\-------------------▫

Next day was an internship day and Happy had been waiting for the kid outside his school. When Peter saw the car, he said goodbye to Ned and got in the car. 

“Hi Happy, how was your day?”

“Hey kid, it was good. Would be better if I didn’t have to drive you around all day”

“Don’t you like spending time with me? I thought you enjoyed our car conversations”

“Kid, these are not real conversations. It’s more of you talking and me being forced to listen”

“Oh well, sorry. Does it annoy you? I can try to be more quiet if you want”

“Nah kid, I just got used to it. Anyway, buckle up, I don’t want to hear Tony complaining to me if a don’t leave you in one piece”

\-------------------▫

 

“Hey Tones, long time, no see”

“Hi Rhodey, It has been a while, I guess we’ve both been busy”

“Yeah man, settling everything at the compound is not the easiest when you need a bunch of superheroes to agree on something. What have you been up to?”

“Besides living in the lab and inventing some awesome stuff, I kinda have a new personal intern and I am dedicated as a mentor”

His best friend just looked him in the eye “You? Tony Stark? With a personal intern? Since when do you even need an intern?”

“I don’t Rhodey, long story short, it just started as a way to prove Pepper wrong on something but it ended up with me caring for a kid and now I’m just used to him”

“Wow. I have to meet this intern. What does he study? And where?”

“Yeah, about that, he was not an official SI intern and he is not in college yet. I met him on a field trip from his school, from Midtown school of Science and Technology. He is 15.”

“You are kidding. Tony, that is a literal child! How could you-?”

“Hey you haven’t met him yet Rhodes, I’m telling you, the kid is smart and very capable of being my intern, he can actually keep up with me and even DUM-E likes him too.“

“Okay, now I need to meet this kid, he has you wrapped around his little finger!”

“He does not”

“Oh he does Tones, the way you are talking about him, it sounds like you really care for him”

“Well, I do, there is nothing wrong with that, I mean, the kid grows on you, it’s not my fault he is so adorable, wait until you meet him to see if you can resist caring for him”

It had been a while since Rhodey had seen his friend this happy, he was a little defensive about the kid but it was obvious he cared for him and he had a small smile while talking about him, he was glad his friend found someone to make him smile like that again.

“Anyway, as much as I would love to keep talking about this kid, I actually need to talk to you and arrange the transport of all the weapons and stuff to the compound.”

“Yeah right, Pepper mentioned that. I’ll tell Happy to do it, he can organize the moving day, no problem”

In that moment, FRIDAY announced the arrival of Happy with Peter to the lab. When the kid saw his best friend, he stood in shock, mouth hanging open. Happy was laughing silently at him and Tony took this opportunity to introduce them.

“Hey kid, so I assume you know who this is?”

“Mr. Coronel James Rhodes sir! It’s an honor to meet you, I mean, you are War Machine or Iron Patriot, wow! I can’t believe I’m meeting you! I’m Peter, sir, Peter Parker. This is great! Mr. Stark didn’t mention you would be here, I’m probably just rambling now, I’m gonna shut up”

“Hey Peter. Nice to meet you. And just Rhodey it’s fine.”

“Yeah good luck with that. I’ve been trying to get him to call me Tony but the kid is stuck with the Mr. Stark”

“Okay Rhodey” The kid said, completely ignoring his mentor

“You little shit. Why is he ‘Rhodey’ after 30 seconds and I’m still Mr. Stark after almost a month?”

“Sorry Mr. Stark. It just suits you better” Peter said with an innocent smile.

“I can’t believe you kid. I feel betrayed”

Now Rhodey was looking at the kid with a fond expression on his face and he hadn’t even met him for longer than 2 minutes. Tony looked at his best friend with a knowing look and said “Told you” then he looked at the kid “Anyway kid, I need to talk with Happy for a moment about something, so just stay here with Rhodes for a while, I’ll be right back”

Peter started rambling about the War Machine suit, how many missions he had been on, how many people he had saved but Rhodey wasn’t really paying attention, now that he was looking at the kid, there was something about him, something that looked familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was exactly. Peter caught him staring at him and raised an eyebrow, so he just decided to use this time to know the kid better.

“So Peter, Tony tells me you are his personal intern, huh? How is it working with him?”

“Mr. Stark is great! He teaches me a lot of stuff and we work on some pretty cool tech too. We actually just started building this new- “And Rhodey was lost again. He started talking about science or engineering or whatever it is he did with Tony but he didn’t understand much of it so he just blocked most of it out. It was similar to when Tony had an idea and no one else knew what he was talking about. And that is when he realized who this kid reminded him of. It was Tony. It was like talking to a much younger and much more excited version of Tony. They not only talked similarly, but they also looked alike. Not an exact replica but the resemblance was there. Brilliant mind, curly brown hair, curious brown eyes, even their noses and mannerisms were kinda similar. Rhodey saw himself staring at a younger version of Tony from their MIT days.

“…so that is really cool, Mr. Stark is helping me with the complicated parts though, because I can’t… em, Mr. Rhodey? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Sorry kid, it’s just that, you look and sound an awful lot like Tony did when he was younger. I kinda had a flashback to MIT when I met him”

“Really? But I don’t look like Mr. Stark at all”

“Oh, you do kid, you totally do”

Tony decided to get in the lab in that moment with Happy. “Well, now that moving day is planned and Happy will be sure to supervise it, I’m ready for a long lab science session with my young apprentice, so if that is all you need…”

“Okay, see you soon Tones, and it was nice meeting you Peter, I hope to see you again”

 

\-------------------▫

 

Peter was playing with something in his fingers, Tony noticed he did that a lot when he was nervous or in deep thought, so he asked the kid “Pete? What’s on your mind? I can literally see your brain overthinking something from here”

“It’s nothing Mr. Stark. I mean, i was just wondering about what you said about moving day? Are you moving out?” Before Tony got the chance to answer Peter kept going: “Oh my god! The month is almost up and wait, is that what you mean? You are leaving the tower to go back to the compound. The intern thing to prove Pepper wrong actually worked so now the time is up and the internship is over” He looked disappointed but was trying to hide it. 

“Kid, what the hell are you talking about? I mean, they are moving the Avengers weapons and some other stuff to the compound but I’m staying here. And the internship isn’t over, I mean, sure, it started as a way to prove Pepper wrong and to escape my responsibilities at SI but now I actually enjoy it and I was thinking that if you wanted to, we could keep up this thing, not to prove Pepper anything but because I like having you around”

Tony didn’t usually said his feelings out loud, but something in the kid’s expression told him he needed to know how important their time together was for him, and it was worth it. After hearing the internship wasn’t over, the kid’s eyes immediately lit up with joy.

“You do? So I get to keep coming over?”

“Of course you do, kid”

“Great, thank you Mr. Stark. When are they moving those things out? Should I not come that day to not be in the way?”

“Next Friday. Happy will be in charge of everything, so don’t worry about it”

“Huh, next Friday is actually my homecoming dance”

“Oh really, who are you planning on inviting kid?” Tony asked with a teasing tone and a smirk on his face.

“Mr. Staaaaark!!” Peter seemed to be more relaxed now and left the little object he was playing with on the work table and started working on some tech.

With a closer look, Tony saw it was a keychain, with the shape of an atom on it, each electron had a different color and in the center where the nucleus of the atom would be, there was a little “P” written on it. It was actually pretty small for it to actually be a keychain. Tony frowned. He could have sworn he had seen it before. The more he looked at it, the more his brain was trying to put together some piece of information, like he was missing something, some thought was escaping his mind, but he pushed it away, maybe it was nothing, after all, it did had the shape of an atom and it was a pretty common shape to see for someone studying science. 

Peter saw him looking at it, he stopped what he was doing and with a shy smile explained: “It was my mom’s.”

“Hmm?” Tony asked, lost in his thoughts he didn’t hear him at first.

“The keychain. It was actually part of a necklace before, that is why it’s kinda small. But after she… emm you know, after the plane crash, Ben found it in my old house and gave it to me. And I used it as a keychain. Thought it would be a nice memory”

Peter didn’t talk about his parents a lot. He actually had never mentioned them before, but he had a small smile on his face, maybe of thinking about them. Tony knew about what had happened. He read about the plane crash that killed his parents, Richard and Mary. About how Peter was only 6 years old. How he went to live with his aunt and uncle after it. About how said uncle was murdered not more than a year ago. Peter had been through a lot. 

“It’s pretty cool. But if it was your mom’s, why does it have a ‘P’ on it?”

“Oh, it’s for Parker. My dad gave it to her when they were dating”

“Huh. I don’t know why I thought I had seen it before. It looked familiar. Anyway, what do you got there? How is it going with the coding?”

They spent the rest of the evening working on the lab. Eventually, Tony ordered some pizza and they ate on the living room of the penthouse at the tower while they waited for Happy to take Peter back to Queens.

 

\-------------------▫

“Aunt May! I’m home”

“Hey Peter, how was school? And the internship?”

“It was great Aunt May! I mean, school was pretty normal but when I got to Stark Tower, I met Colonel Rhodes!! It was so cool! He said I reminded him of Mr. Stark when he was young. And then i spent the rest of the evening working on the lab, it was pretty cool”

“I’m sure it was Pete. I’m glad you are enjoying your time there. I have to say, I had my doubts of you taking that internship but you look like you really like it there”

“Being there is amazing May, really, I don’t know how I’m so lucky to have it”

May smiled at her nephew. “Well you deserve it Peter. Now, is your homework done?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as you can already tell, next chapter will be about Homecoming. We already had Rhodey, Happy and Pepper, so next we’ll have May and Ned coming to the story. Tell me what you think about the story so far :)


	4. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That is when Peter realizes what the Vulture is trying to do. His plan is to hijack the plane transporting the weapons from the Tower to the compound. “It’s moving day! It’s moving day! He is going to steal that plane. I have to stop him!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some parts are narrated pretty quickly since I assume most of you have seen Homecoming and you know what happens. It’s mostly the same with some changes here and there. Let’s just pretend that what happened at the ferry wasn’t as bad as in was in the actual movie and Peter’s suit has been his homemade one all this time, since Tony doesn’t know about him.  
> Anyway, enjoy the chapter! There are some things at the end where things start to get interesting...

Peter had been investigating the weird alien tech for a while. When he first encountered the men who had the weapons, he thought he could deal with them on his own. He was working on it. And one night, getting in his room after patrolling, Ned found out his identity. Then he got the Stark Internship. He was still working on figuring out the Vulture guy. He put a lot of people at risk on the ferry to find out the identity of the man in charge of everything. But he needed to take them down. 

He could always talk with Mr. Stark. Tell him his secret identity and ask him for help. But was it really worth the time of Iron Man? So he just decided to ask for help if and only if he definitely and desperately needed it. 

It was a day before homecoming. His week had been rather boring, besides the internship on Tuesday and a short patrolling some days. But he had invited Liz Allen to homecoming with him and she had said yes, which was pretty cool because he’s had a crush on her since forever and she was a senior. He even told Mr. Stark about her.

It was now Thursday and he had to take the subway to the tower since Happy was busy with some last details of their moving day tomorrow. He had arrived at the tower with no problem and had been on the lab with Mr. Stark for a while when the man suddenly asked: “Do you know Spiderman?”

That sent Peter into panic mode. Why would Mr. Stark ask him about Spiderman? Had he figured out it was him? Was that like a trick question or something? He tried to play it cool in case he didn’t know anything.

“Huh? What do you… what do you mean if I know him?”

“You know, you are from Queens.“ As if it was obvious. “And from what I have heard, that is kinda like his area of work, so maybe you know the guy”

“What? No. Nope. Not at all. I mean, I have heard about him? I guess, and I have seen him around a couple of times but that is it. No one knows who he is, right?

“Right. Is he some sort of vigilante or what”

“Well, kinda. He is just looking out for the little guy, you know. Simple stuff.”

“How can you tell? How do you know he is not a threat?”

“I mean, I guess no one really knows for sure, but so far, all he has done is help, right? So why would he be a threat?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to keep an eye for him. Just in case.”

“Mr. Stark?”

“Yeah kid?”

“Why is it different than you? I mean, Spiderman has powers and his webs and suit, but he uses them to help people, I know it’s not really the same and you sort of gave yourself powers with the suit but-”

“Kid, the suit definitely helps but I’m just a man in a can. And I don’t hide my identity. And this Spider guy, we don’t really know his intentions. I’m not saying he is a bad guy. I’m just saying there is a lot we don’t know about him. Just because you have a suit or powers doesn’t make you a hero. I do try to do what I can to help people, but it isn’t the suit. If you had powers and a suit and everything but couldn’t do anything without them, are you really a hero? If you are nothing without a suit, then you shouldn’t have it.”

 

\-------------------▫

 

It was Homecoming day and he was starting to be really nervous. He got ready with the help of May. She helped with his tie and took him to Liz’s house. Before knocking on the door, he took a deep breath. He could do this. He was ready. Then, he was shocked to find that the man who opened it was no other than the Vulture. The guy with the wings. The guy behind all the illegal alien tech. And he was Liz’s dad. 

Peter was speechless. What was he supposed to do now? He had no idea. He should get out of there. But that would be weird and suspicious. He had to pretend everything was okay for now, for Liz. But things just started getting worse. On their way to the dance, Toomes deduced his secret identity from things Liz was saying about him. That was bad, he was not expecting to find the guy he had been after all this time like this, and now he knew his secret identity. 

When Liz left the car, he threated that if Spiderman interfered with his plans again, he would kill him. But Peter couldn’t not do anything. He must be planning something, so he left his phone on the man’s car and left to find his suit and web shooters. On his way out to follow Toomes, he was attacked by some other guy with alien tech, probably from Toomes’ side. Luckily, Ned arrived just in time to help him. “Ned! The guy with the wings is Liz’s dad! I got to tell Mr. Stark! Call Happy Hogan, he is Mr. Stark's head of security and get a computer and track my phone for me, he said he was going out of town and I have to follow him”

Then, he kinda steals Flash’s car and phone to follow Toomes. He tries driving Flash’s car while Ned manages to call Happy. He hears some shouting in the back about taking off in 9 minutes “Kid, I’m super busy right now. I have a million things to do, you know this.”

“Mr. Happy. I’m not Peter, it’s Ned”

“Who?” 

“I’m an associate of Peter Parker and I have something very important to tell you” 

“Oh you gotta to be shitting me” And he hangs up. 

“Um, Peter. Happy answered. Don’t think he likes you by the way. He hung up on me. It sounded like he was catching a flight. He said something about taking off in 9 minutes”

That is when Peter realizes what Toomes is trying to do. His plan is to hijack the plane transporting the weapons from Avengers Tower to the compound. “It’s moving day! Ned! It’s moving day! He is going to steal that plane. I have to stop him!”

He gets to Toomes' lair in an old warehouse. They confront each other but before they can fight, Toomes destroys the building's support beams with his winged suit and leaves Peter under the rubble. He was trapped. There was no one that could help him. This was too much for him. He couldn’t do it. He was just going to give up, but then he remembered what Mr. Stark had told him about heroes. _‘Just because you have a suit or powers doesn’t make you a hero’_ and _‘If you are nothing without a suit, then you shouldn’t have it.’_ That is when he realized that his powers didn’t make his Spiderman and neither did the suit. They just made it easier. But what really motivated him was to help people and he was not going to let the Vulture take Mr. Stark’s things. So with all his strength, he lifts the rubble and is able to escape the fallen warehouse and intercept the plane. 

He fights with the Vulture on the flying plane, eventually steering it to crash on a beach near Coney Island. He continues to fight Toomes and he ends up saving his life after the damaged Vulture suit explodes, then he leaves him for the police along with a note and the plane's cargo. And he takes off to the Cyclone to watch over everything and catch his breath. 

When almost all his bruises and cuts are mostly healed, he heads home, to Queens to find that his aunt it’s not in their apartment. After calling Ned, he takes a shower to clean all the blood, sand and dust all over him. Now, what he needs to do is fix his suit. It was ripped and had blood all over it. And his web shooters were not working right. He should fix those first. So after tinkering with them for a bit, he puts them on and aims to open a drawer to make sure they work when he hears the voice of his aunt on the door “What the fuck?!?”

“Aunt May, hey, I didn’t know you were home”

“Peter I just got here. What is that? Why do you have those webs and is that blood on that suit? Oh my god! You are that Spider hero everyone talks about in Queens, aren’t you? How could you keep this from me? How long have you been doing this? Is Stark involved with that fact you are a superhero? Is that why he came here?”

Oh boy. He could always try and deny everything but all the evidence was not in his favor. So he just accepted that his aunt had found out and decided to tell her the truth. 

“Aunt May just let me explain, okay, well, i’ve been doing this for almost a year and no, Mr. Stark doesn’t have anything to do with this, he doesn’t even know. I was bitten by a radioactive spider on the Oscorp field trip last year and it sort of gave me superpowers. And I just felt like I should help people with them.”

“Oh Peter. Why didn’t you tell me? And why is that suit covered with blood and dirt? What were you doing?”

“I didn’t want to worry you May and I just came from crashing a plane? Which, sounds worst that it actually is, I promise” And with that he told his aunt everything he had been doing. She was not happy with him, she yelled at him a lot but she let him keep being Spiderman. Now he was grounded, and with some rules and curfews here and there but she had accepted it. Mostly she wanted him to let her know where he was and what he was doing. Not every second of the day but a general update on his whereabouts. He could live with that. 

“Honey, why don’t you tell Stark? He is not my favorite person but i would think that he would be the first to go with a situation like this, he is a literal superhero”

“I know May, and I have thought about it, but I don’t know. He thinks Spiderman is a vigilante, maybe a threat and he doesn’t exactly trust him. What is he going to do if he finds out I am Spiderman and I’ve been keeping it from him all this time?”

 

\-------------------▫

 

It was a mess to deal with it. Happy called him on Friday night to tell him what happened. This Vulture guy trying to hijack his plane and steal his weapons. Said plane crashing on Coney Island. And the masked vigilante Spiderman saving all of his things and actually catching the guy.

He wanted to talk to the Spider guy. Thank him and maybe find out more about him. But no one knew who this guy was. But if there was someone who could figure it out, it was him.  
After dealing with all the disaster that was Friday night, he managed to successfully transport everything back to the compound with no one trying to steal it again. He left Pepper all the media and SI problems related to it. Now it was Tuesday and Peter would be arriving any minute. He had enough stress during the weekend and now he wanted to hear the kid talk about his homecoming to forget about everything that had happened.

When Peter arrived at the compound he didn’t know what to expect. Happy had asked him on their way to the tower why he had called him on Friday night but he just said it was a mistake, nothing important. Now, on his way to the lab, he was still deciding whether it would be a good idea to tell Mr. Stark he was Spiderman or not. Maybe he would hate him for ruining the plane. Maybe he would turn him over to Ross because he was a vigilante. Or maybe he would be proud and supportive about it. He was really hoping it was the later. 

“Hey Pete, how was your homecoming dance?”

He should have seen it coming. The man was going to ask him about his homecoming and probably about Liz assuming he had a good time, when in reality, he was no longer than 30 seconds on the dance and his date’s father ended up being a supervillain he had to fight. Maybe he could tell a partial truth. Drop some hints about what had really happened. Looking for a reaction about what Mr. Stark thought of Spiderman after all. 

“It was good. I mean, I had a good time with my friends, you know, there was Ned, and MJ and obviously Liz. But I heard that there was this altercation in the parking lot, between Spiderman and someone named the shocker? It was crazy. And then I heard about your plane and stuff, it’s everything okay?”

“Yeah Pete. Spiderman saved the day. He caught the bad guy and saved the weapons. Although his suit could use some upgrades. He is literally wearing pajamas. I don’t know how he fights crime in those. Anyway, i don’t know who he is or where he is to thank him though. But let’s not talk about that mess. I didn’t know about this fight at your school with Spiderman, what was that about?”

“Well, actually, that bad guy? Adrien Toomes? He ended up being Liz’s dad, you know, the girl I asked to be my date”

“No way kid, are you serious? The girl you like and she is the daughter of some illegal weapon’s dealer? That is bad luck kid."

“You have no idea. Anyway, you said you wanted to thank Spiderman? I thought you didn’t like the guy.”

“It’s not that I don’t like him, he does some good stuff around the neighborhood but no one knows who he is or why he does whatever he does so it’s complicated. But even I have to admit, what he did was pretty brave. I was even talking to Rhodey to make him a part of the Avengers”

“Wait, really? The Avengers? Why?”

“He kinda proved himself. He has some pretty cool skills but part of why I don’t trust him it’s because he is known to be a vigilante. So if he is a part of the team, he would be an official superhero, working with the avengers, we could train him and make sure he is on our side”

Peter was seriously considering telling Mr. Stark his real identity. May and Ned already knew. And he trusted Mr. Stark. Now that he knew the man wouldn’t throw him on jail or something, he felt that maybe it was time to tell his mentor the truth about his superhero identity. But he wouldn’t want to be part of the Avengers. All this experience with the Vulture and the weapons made him realize he wanted to keep being a friendly neighborhood Spiderman for a while and look out for the little guy. 

“Mr. Stark, you know, there is something I need to tell you, it’s kinda important and please don’t be mad I didn’t tell you before, it’s not that I didn’t trust you, it’s just that I didn’t know how you would react or-“

“Kid, you are rambling. And you look nervous. Hey, you know you can tell me anything, right?”

“Yeah, okay, I-“

“I’m sorry boss, but there is an emergency call from the Avengers Compound, your presence is required immediately”

“Just a second FRI, i’ll be right there, but kid, what did you want to tell me?”

“It’s nothing Mr. Stark, really, I’ll tell you later, they need you”

“You sure? And sorry to cut our lab time but-”

“Yeah, it's okay. Don’t worry about it, I’ll be fine”

 

\-------------------▫

 

Tony arrived at the compound 20 minutes later on his suit. Everyone was in a conference room, there was Rhodey, Vision, Steve, Natasha, Sam and Wanda. Clint was probably still with his family. But it didn’t look like an emergency, they were seated calmly and they looked like they were waiting for him.

“Okay, I was dragged from my lab in the tower to this emergency call or whatever but I don’t see anything on fire and it doesn’t look like the end of the world is coming so why did you call me here”

“Tony” Steve started. “There was an attempt to infiltrate the compound. Not to attack us but to steal the weapons you moved from the tower”

Sam continued “They were mostly spies, tried to hack into the computers to get some information and sneak around the place to see what they could take with them”

“What? This place is almost impossible to hack. No one can get in here if I don’t want them to”

“Which is why we were alerted almost immediately, whoever did it made a mistake and they didn’t shut down every security detail the way they should have and we reacted fast so nothing was stolen” Rhodey said.

“Well that is great, if nothing was stolen, then why are we worrying?”

Rhodey answered him again. “Before they left, Natasha managed to fight and identify one of the guys. Tony, they were HYDRA.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now the real plot starts. Things are going to start getting interesting. Hope you enjoyed it!  
> Some of you mentioned on the comments the keychain and Tony recognizing it. It is important. It will be addressed later on the story. But for now I won’t confirm nor deny anything. *insert evil laugh* so you’ll just have to wait and see :)


	5. Meet Spider-man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How that kid managed to get himself in those situations, he had no idea. Natasha herself, who was literally a spy, was working on tracking HYDRA activity with no success and the kid just happened to run into them?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, let’s assume Spiderman Homecoming happened at the end of 2016 so Peter is about to finish his school year. I know nothing of American schools and their schedules so just go with it.

School had been boring. They only had about a week until their winter break and Peter couldn’t wait to be free of homework. He could dedicate more time to Spiderman and maybe Mr. Stark would let him go to the lab more often. 

Peter had tried to tell Mr. Stark about him being Spiderman the last time he saw him. He really did. But it looked like the universe had other plans. But today was a lab day. Today, when he went to the tower he would tell Mr. Stark the truth. 

Happy didn’t pick him up either today. He was still dealing with the aftermath of the plane crash so today he had to take the subway again. He really didn’t mind though. He was on his way to the closest station, walking near an abandoned warehouse when he felt his Spidey sense warning him about something. He tried to ignore it. Maybe it was because an old abandoned building didn’t bring the best memories from the Vulture. But in a few seconds it was so intense he couldn’t ignore it anymore. Something was going to happen. He started looking everywhere for whatever the threat was when he saw a suspicious black van approaching the entry of the abandoned warehouse. 

He saw several men walking out of the van and getting in the warehouse. He decided to investigate. He found an alley, changed into his Spiderman suit and climbed a wall to find a window and see what was going on inside. 

There was like a shipment of weapons inside. And some other men. But what really caught his attention was the hidden symbol they were wearing. If he hadn’t had enhanced senses, he probably would have missed it. It was the HYDRA symbol. He knew what it looked like from when SHIELD released all that information on HYDRA all those years ago. But what were they doing? Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good but he couldn’t stop them by himself. He was about to call Mr. Stark when they started talking between themselves.

“We need to move the rest of the weapons to a more secure location. We don’t have Toomes to get the shipment he was going to steal from Stark thanks to that Spider guy and after ruining the last mission at the Avengers Compound, we couldn’t steal it either. And now we have the Avengers looking for us. 

“And that is the last thing we need. We take this shipment to the new facility and then get rid of this place. We can’t have anyone finding anything”

“You and your men start taking everything out. I’ll start to set up the bombs around the beams to take this place down”

This was bad. This was really really bad. They were going to blow this place, with bombs. An explosion could hurt a lot of people if it was big enough. He had to stop them. And he couldn’t let them move those weapons, who knew what they were planning on doing with them. And he couldn’t let them explode the place. He had to stop both things from happening. But this was HYDRA. He needed help. So he did the only thing he could think about. He called Mr. Stark.

“Hey kid, are you on your way already? I have someone I want you to meet”

“Hey Mr. Stark, I might be running a little late and I need your help”

“Peter? Are you okay? What happened?”

“Yeah, I’m okay, but uh I was walking to the subway station right? And I found this abandoned warehouse with a bunch of weird looking men and i thought it was suspicious so I followed them and they have this thing full of weapons and they are putting bombs around the place and I think Spiderman is around? But maybe this is a bit too much for him and maybe you could come and help?”

“PETER! WHAT THE HELL?? If you see something like that, you turn the other way around!! You don’t _follow_ them!! Are you crazy!? I’m coming kid, just get out of there and hide”

“Yeah, sure, okay, great. Um, also, did I mention, I think they are HYDRA? It’s just they have that symbol on their clothes but I’m not sure”

“WHAT? How did you manage to run into HYDRA?? You are going to give me a heart attack kid. Just stay still. Don’t do anything. I’ll track your phone. I’ve got this.” And he hung up.

“Okaaaay, now, I wait for him. Hopefully they won’t do anything too bad until Mr. Stark gets here”

Like always, his Parker luck had other ideas. The men started moving everything to the van faster than he had expected them to and another truck had arrived, probably to move the biggest weapons. He couldn’t let them take those to god knows where. They probably had more weapons in that secret facility they mentioned, but maybe this made a difference. He wouldn’t let them get more ways to hurt people. So against all common sense, he shot a web to where the van was parked and tried to distract them to buy Mr. Stark more time to get there. 

He started webbing them up, catching them by surprise at first but when others saw what was happening, they pulled their guns out and that was a bit more tricky, not only fighting them but also trying to not get shot in the process. It was a bit of an unfair fight, several of the men against one of him. He webbed most of them up and now it was only him and 3 more guys, he got this. That is, until more men came from inside the warehouse. He was definitely outnumbered. He couldn’t win against all of them at the same time. Separately? Probably, he had good chances. But all of them together? Nope. 

He was starting to panic when someone else joined the fight. He saw out of the corner of his eye that _Black Widow_ and _Captain America_ were fighting the men and easily winning while _War Machine_ took care of the truck and the van with the weapons inside. He was fighting with the Avengers. Against HYDRA. This was so cool. Except for the weapons. And the bomb. And the secret identity he still hadn’t told his mentor about. He couldn’t see Iron Man, but he could hear him. He was inside the warehouse trying to disarm the bombs, so he left the fight to the others and went inside to help his mentor. 

There were no men inside. The one who set the bombs was probably done by now and was probably fighting outside with the others. Well, that should make this easy.

“FRI isn’t there a way to disarm all the bombs at once? I don’t have the time to go one by one” He heard Mr. Stark say. 

“Maybe I can help” 

“Spiderman? Huh, who would have thought this is what it took to finally have a word with you”

“Yeah, about your plane…”

“We’ll talk about it later. We have more important things going on right now. What do you mean you can help? You know how to disarm bombs?”

“Well, yeah. And also, I heard the guy say the bombs were on the beams, so there should only be 6 of them, we do 3 and 3 each and that is it, it will be faster”

“Okay, let’s do it, we don’t know when those are set to explode but do it fast”

“Got it”

They started working on disarming the bombs. Tony was actually worried because he wasn’t sure if Spiderman could actually disarm the bombs, he didn’t know what the guy was capable of. But he had saved his plane and he should trust him a little. Even if he had no idea who could be behind the mask. They both finished rather quickly. In less than 10 minutes the Avengers outside had managed to defeat all the men and get rid of the weapons while Tony and Peter took care of the bombs. 

When they were done, they all met outside the warehouse. Steve and Natasha offered to deal with the men while Rhodey dealt with whatever was left of the weapons. That left Tony to talk with Spiderman. Peter didn’t know how to start this conversation. They were walking around the entrance of the warehouse, looking around to see if they missed something, when Mr. Stark started talking.

“So, you did a good job today. And with the Vulture too. Thanks for that by the way.” He paused and then said “But have you seen a boy, yay high, brown hair, looks like a total nerd around here? He is the one who let us know what was happening and I want to make sure he is okay. And I can’t call him or track his phone because he left it somewhere around.”

“Right, about that-“. That is when his Spidey senses went crazy and he heard a noise. Something was ticking. It was coming from behind a wall. A wall Mr. Stark was close to. Suddenly it started ticking faster and that could only mean one thing. There was another bomb hidden somewhere and it was about to explode. Peter reacted as fast as he could and before Mr. Stark could do anything, he pushed him out of the way, towards the exit of the warehouse and to safety while he received the impact by himself. 

 

\-------------------▫

Tony had been stressing over HYDRA since he was told they had tried to take their weapons. Even if they had managed to decimate a lot of HYDRA bases on their years as Avengers, apparently there were still some left. And even if they didn’t succeed at stealing their things at the compound, their intentions were still worrying. While Vision, Sam and Wanda stayed upstate, Natasha, Rhodes and Steve had gone to the tower to investigate a few potential leads they had found on New York about HYDRA without much luck. 

Today was Thursday, so he was waiting for Peter. He could have cancelled their lab time with everything that was going on with HYDRA but they didn’t really have much progress on that subject and he wanted to see the kid. Last time they spoke, they were interrupted by that emergency meeting and it looked like whatever Peter was trying to tell him was important. Besides, a few Avengers were in the tower and he wanted to introduce them, he wanted to see Peter’s reaction to the other heroes. 

In that moment his phone rang and he saw that the kid was calling, maybe he was running a little late or something. “Hey kid, are you on your way already? I have someone I want you to meet”

“Hey Mr. Stark, I might be running a little late and I need your help” He sounded nervous. 

“Peter? Are you okay? What happened?” He was starting to worry about the kid, what was he up to?

“Yeah, I’m okay, but uh I was walking to the subway station right? And I found this abandoned warehouse with a bunch of weird looking men and i thought it was suspicious so I followed them and they have this thing full of weapons and they are putting bombs around the place and I think Spiderman is around? But maybe this is a bit too much for him and maybe you could come and help?”

“PETER! WHAT THE HELL?? If you see something like that, you turn the other way around!! You don’t _follow_ them!! Are you crazy!? I’m coming kid, just get out of there and hide” He started running out of the lab towards the common room where he knew the rest of the team would be and told FRIDAY to send him a suit.

“Yeah, sure, okay, great. Um, also, did I mention, I think they are HYDRA? It’s just they have that symbol on their clothes but I’m not sure”

“WHAT? How did you manage to run into HYDRA?? You are going to give me a heart attack kid. Just stay still. Don’t do anything. I’ll track your phone. I’ve got this.” And he hung up.

How that kid managed to get himself in those situations, he had no idea. Natasha herself, who was literally _a spy_ , was working on tracking HYDRA activity with no success and the kid just happened to run into them? He called the Avengers present at the tower, gave them a short version of what was happening and headed towards the location of Peter’s phone. 

Like Peter had said, Spiderman was already there fighting the men and Peter was nowhere to be seen. Thank god. The Spider guy was a good fighter and had a lot of men webbed up but he was still outnumbered until Natasha and Steve started fighting the men as well, Rhodey took care of the weapons and he started looking for the bombs around the place. Then Spiderman appeared and helped him deal with the explosives. 

After everything was secure, Steve and Natasha offered to deal with the men and Rhodey with the weapons. Now, Tony wanted to check on Peter, he didn’t know where the boy was. He hoped he was safe and had gotten out of there like he told him to. But now he was finally with Spiderman and since the guy seemed to disappear all the time, he needed to use this chance to talk to the guy. 

“So, you did a good job today. And with the Vulture too. Thanks for that by the way.” He said to start a conversation but he couldn’t hide his concern for Peter, so he asked “But have you seen a boy, yay high, brown hair, looks like a total nerd around here? He is the one who let us know what was happening and I want to make sure he is okay. And I can’t call him or track his phone because he left it somewhere around.”

Spiderman looked nervous, like he wanted to escape the conversation but at the same time, knew that it needed to happen. “Right, about that-“. But he stopped talking to look at a wall next to them. He was about to ask him what was wrong when suddenly the hero was pushing him out of the warehouse as he heard a loud explosion. 

Apparently there was another bomb none of them had noticed. They must have hidden it in case something happened with the other bombs. It probably wasn’t as bad as it could have been if the other 6 bombs had detonated, but still, a good part of the place had fallen down. But now he was uninjured outside the warehouse while Spiderman took the brunt of the explosion to save him and was somewhere under all that rubble. He stood up and asked FRIDAY to look for the young hero, and being guided by his AI, he started pulling the debris out of the way until he finally saw the characteristic red and blue from the Spiderman costume. 

He took Spiderman out of the warehouse to a nearby rooftop to check his injuries. He was covered in blood and dust. He wasn’t sure if he was conscious or even breathing. It was hard to tell with the mask. So he made a silent promise to keep the hero’s identity a secret. He had saved his life after all and was in this position because of it. So he lifted his mask and was surprised to see a familiar young face with his eyes closed in front of him.

“PETER??”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you see that coming? Did you like it? I'll be posting another chapter tomorrow. Let me know what you think :)


	6. You are not ready

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You are at the tower, in the Med Bay. And about what happened, let’s see,” As he started listing things. “HYDRA. Weapons. Fighting. You jumping in front of a bomb. Getting injured and scaring the shit out of me. And let’s not forget about you being Spiderman and not telling me about it. The usual”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is chapter six!! We have Tony and Peter finally talking about Spiderman and some Avengers are coming to the story :) Also, happy birthday to Tom Holland, our dear MCU Spidey.

Tony was most definitely not panicking. He was as calm as he could be. Considering he just found out that his young mentee who he had been working with for a month is a secret superhero who saved his plane last Friday. And now, not even a week later, was unconscious on the Med Bay from the tower because of a bomb explosion courtesy of HYDRA. He was handling things pretty well given the situation. 

After taking the kid to the tower and being lucky enough that Helen Cho was in New York, he called her to check the kid, he didn’t trust anyone else and it was obvious the kid used the mask and had a secret identity for a reason. 

Helen had been working on the kid for the last 15 minutes. Steve had called to tell him they had everything under control and asked him about Spiderman. He didn’t really know what to say so he told him he would call him back later. He had to talk to the kid first about this. He also called his aunt, May Parker. He didn’t know if she knew about his nephew’s extracurricular activities but she should know where he was.

It turns out, she did know. After carefully trying to explain the situation to her without giving too much away, she understood the reality of what was happening and told him that she had found out about the Spiderman thing after the plane crash on Friday. She was worried about her nephew but he assured her that Peter was in good hands and was being treated at the tower, so she relaxed knowing this and said she would stop by later. 

After another 15 minutes of waiting, Helen finally told him he could see the kid. He was still recuperating but she said he would be okay. He actually had an impressive healing factor that had help with most of his injuries and now he was just resting. She told him that when the kid woke up, he was free to leave the Med Bay since he had no major injuries left and everything was fixed.

When he got into the room Peter was in, he allowed himself to breathe. The kid was just sleeping. He was going to be fine. Tony had been so scared when he saw that Peter was the one behind that mask. What the hell was a 15 year old kid doing superhero things? He never could have imagined it. Now he understood why Peter kept defending what Spiderman did. It was because _it was him._

Why hadn’t he told him before? Did he not trust him? He had a million questions he wanted to ask the kid but he should let him rest first. He sat on the chair next to Peter’s bed and started to think if there was anything Peter ever did or said that could indicate he was Spiderman. How didn’t he notice before? He should have seen it. What if this is what Peter was trying to tell him the other day? At the lab when they were interrupted. 

He asked FRIDAY to replay that moment for him. The AI put the footage on his phone and he heard Peter’s voice say: _‘Mr. Stark, you know, there is something I need to tell you, it’s kinda important and please don’t be mad I didn’t tell you before, it’s not that I didn’t trust you, it’s just that I didn’t know how you would react or-‘_

Well at least the kid had _tried_ to tell him. He saw the ripped homemade suit lying next to the kid and decided right then and there that the first thing he was going to do after making sure Peter was okay was build him a functional suit that wasn’t a _onesie_. How does Peter even fight in those pajamas? That couldn’t be safe. Or practical. Or useful. 

He started thinking of all the protocols and safety measures he would put on the kid’s suit when Peter started to move. He was probably waking up. Tony decided they needed to have a conversation about keeping secrets and jumping without hesitation in front of bombs. 

“Hey Pete, you awake?”

“Mr. Stark? What- what happened? Where am i?”

“You are at the tower, in the Med Bay. And about what happened, let’s see,” As he started listing things. “HYDRA. Weapons. Fighting. You jumping in front of a _bomb_. Getting injured and scaring the shit out of me. And let’s not forget about you being Spiderman and not telling me about it. The usual” 

The kid’s eyes suddenly opened wide awake, as if he had just remembered everything that had happened. He started talking a mile per minute as he usually did, trying to explain everything.

“OH MY GOD MR. STARK!! This is not how I wanted you to find out!! I mean I was totally planning on telling you!! I swear! I was kinda doubting it at first because I didn’t know what you really thought about Spiderman and maybe you would hate me but then I saved your plane and I realized you didn’t actually hate him, well, me… and then my aunt found out and then I was looking for a way to tell you, you know, because it was about time and I trust you and I didn’t mean to keep it from you all this time but just so many things were happening and then we were interrupted the other day when I tried to tell you, and today I knew I needed your help with HYDRA and those weapons and-“

“Wow Pete, slow down a bit. I’m not mad about you not telling me you are Spiderman. I mean, i would have liked to know and i could have helped you because I am a literal superhero but I guess I understand why you did it.”

“You do?”

“I do. What I _do not_ understand is why on earth you decided to play superhero. You are a kid. Literally. You have been doing this for god knows how long without supervision. You are fighting crime everyday on _pajamas_. I talked with your aunt -she knows you are here by the way- and she said she already knew and had talked to you about it and I don’t know how she was so calm about all this.”

“She was definitely not calm. She yelled at me a lot. But I explained her that with my powers I can’t just _not do something_ to help when I can. I already let that happen and my uncle died because of it. I don’t want that happening again. But, wait you called Aunt May? What did she say?”

“She was worried kiddo, what do you think? But I told her you would be fine and she is stopping by later to check on you. Also, your uncle’s death was not on you kid, you can’t blame yourself”

“It kinda was my fault Mr. Stark. It is what inspired me to become Spiderman in the first place. If you can do the things that I can, but you don’t and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you.”

The kid was just so damn stubborn. And with a guilt complex to match. Great. He couldn’t stop him from doing this. He knew it better than anyone. May probably knew that too and that is why she let him do it. At least with them knowing, Peter didn’t have to keep things from them and they could try and protect Peter as much as they could.

“Okay, if we are really doing this then we have to take it seriously and step one is no more of that onesie. You need an upgrade. We are definitely building you an actual suit. You will no longer fight on pajamas”

“Oh my god Mr. Stark!” Peter blushed “It’s not a onesie or pajamas! It’s my suit!”

“Hate to break it to you kid, but those are definitely pajamas.”

Peter just rolled his eyes but let it go. “I guess you probably have some questions then. About all this Spiderman thing”

“You bet I do kid, but you are resting, we can talk about it later”

“No, I’m fine. Enhanced healing. I’ll tell you about it”

So Peter told Tony how he got his powers from a radioactive Spider on a field trip to Oscorp. How he watched his uncle die in front of him while he could have done something. How that inspired him to look out for the little guy. He told him about his powers, about his webbing and web shooters. Until he got to the Vulture part and he skipped a few things. Then, he explained what had happened today, about his Spidey sense warning him of those men and the hidden bomb in the warehouse

“Spidey sense? I was wondering how you could have known something was going to happen. It’s actually pretty cool, to sense danger like that”

“Yeah well, Ned named it ‘Spider sense’ to make it sound cool. For me it was just like ‘Spidey Anxiety’.”

“Spidey sense is definitely cooler. Also, don’t ever jump in front of a bomb like that Pete, you scared the hell out of me”

“I’m sorry. But you were closer to it, it would have hurt you really badly. I had to push you out of the way. Besides, i’m okay. It’s fine”

“It’s _not fine_ kid, you were unconscious and bleeding and I was _worried_ ”

“I’m sorry I made you worry like that and that I didn’t tell you about Spiderman sooner”

“It’s okay kiddo, just don’t jump into danger like that and if you need help you can call me. You know you can count on me”

Then, FRIDAY interrupted “Sir, May Parker is requesting entry to the Med Bay, should I let her in?”

“Huh, she arrived sooner than I thought. But of course FRI, send her up”

After seeing for herself that her nephew was okay, May relaxed on the chair next to Peter and thanked Tony for helping her boy.

“It was nothing May. Really. He did a good job. He saved me from an explosion. I was really concerned about it but turns out he has some super healing helping him cheat and accelerate his recovery”

“Yeah I’m fine. Since I’m all good and nothing is broken can we get out of the med bay?” Peter asked. 

“Sure Pete, Helen –the doctor that helped you- said you were good to go. Let’s go to the kitchen, you must be hungry”

After getting something to eat for the three of them, Tony mentioned “You know what kid, even though you did a pretty good job fighting those men, it wouldn’t hurt to have some training, you know, and it just so happens that both this tower and the compound are full of people who know how to fight. So what do you say? Want some training with the Avengers?” Then he looked at May’s face “That is, if May is cool with it.”

May was seriously thinking about it. “It’s actually a pretty good idea Tony, Pete is about to have his winter break and since I still have to work, he would be by himself all day. But he could come here instead and train with you. I would be much calmer about this whole thing knowing Peter has proper training and someone looking out for him while he is out there. I know I can’t stop him from doing this, but we can help him get better and safer”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. We are also building him a better suit, because he was literally on pajamas May, seriously”

“They were not pajamas Mr. Stark! Don’t embarrass me!!”

May just laughed. She hadn’t seen Tony interact with Peter. Even though she had talked to the man before and Peter told her everything about his internship with him, she didn’t know what their relationship was like. And now, watching them talk and be around each other’s company, she could tell that the man cared for her nephew. He had a small smile on his face while looking at Peter. It was nothing like the man she saw on TV or magazines. And Peter had always admired Tony, even before Iron Man. She could see that they made each other happy. 

“I’m just messing with you kid, so, what do you say about training?”

“Oh yeah!! It sounds amazing Mr. Stark!! Training with _the Avengers!_ That is so cool”

“About that kid, are we telling everyone else on the team about your, you know, secret identity?”

“I… I don’t know Mr. Stark, should i?”

“It’s up to you kid, it’s your secret identity but if I were you I would just tell them. You can trust them and they can help with your fighting and everything”

“Okay, I’ll think about it”

 

\-------------------▫

 

When the kid was finally on winter break, he went almost every day to the tower. He started working on the new Spiderman suit with Mr. Stark which was pretty awesome. They were working on some new web combinations for his web shooters. It was just him and Mr. Stark at first, but later he was officially introduced to the Avengers. He had decided to tell them about Spiderman.

Like Tony, they didn’t love the fact that Spiderman was really a kid –a teenager, Peter said, not a kid- but they all agreed to help him train. When he was not working on his suit or in the lab with Mr. Stark, one of the Avengers was training with him. Natasha had been particularly willing to help him practice some new fighting techniques which he was not complaining about, even though he always ended up with bruises. He was learning from the _Black Widow._

Tony noticed everyone on the team was starting to grow fond of the kid. It was almost impossible not to. Natasha was practically giving him private personal self-defense lessons. Steve was the one sparring with him the most since they had similar strength and enhancements. Wanda looked at Peter like a little brother, maybe he reminded her of Pietro. Sam ended up playing videogames with the kid, losing every single time and saying he was cheating. Rhodey had taken upon himself to teach Peter how to cook some dishes and desserts to survive because ‘they couldn’t always live from takeout and you are a growing boy’. Even Vision joined them sometimes. 

They were all on the lookout for anything related to HYDRA but they hadn’t found out much. Still, they were all waiting for something to happen. It was only a matter of time.

Tony was pretty proud of Peter. He was really taking seriously his training. A couple of weeks after their arrangement, Tony and Peter had actually managed to build the new Spiderman suit. The kid even went patrolling for almost an entire day to test it out. May had let him stay with him for the entire week at Stark Tower and now he was planning on taking the kid upstate to see the compound by himself and spend the weekend there. 

The kid was slowly piecing them back together as a team, even if he didn’t know it. Thanks to the kid, they had ended up having some movie nights at the tower and doing some training sessions together. Tony had realized they all shared the same concern and love for the kid, even if none of them said it out loud. 

It was Friday morning and everyone was already at the compound, except Vision and Wanda who were on a little trip to Wakanda, who knows for what. So it was only him and the kid on their way there. When they arrived, Tony showed him around while Peter looked at everything in awe. It was mostly empty, it was just the Avengers living there. After the Civil War they still had to work through a lot of things so they decided to do it by themselves for now.

After the little tour, they headed to the kitchen for something to eat before heading to the lab. Rhodey and Sam were there. Apparently Natasha and Steve were following some lead on HYDRA in one of the conference rooms. 

It was after lunch when they got it. Steve and Natasha had found an update of some secret HYDRA facility near Washington DC. It was less than 30 minutes away on the Quinjet. And it was probably where those men had been meaning to take those weapons from the warehouse. Now, they had a location. They had a mission. 

“Alright everyone, suit up. We’ll meet in the Quinjet in 10 minutes” Steve said

“Mr. Stark!! Can I go? I mean, I know I’m not an avenger or anything but I already dealt with those weapons before! I can help!”

It was actually Natasha the one who answered. “Pete, I think you should stay here. It’s pretty suspicious that we’ve been trying to find them for weeks with no result to suddenly getting a specific location on where they are. This could be a trap and it’s better if you are not there.”

“But I’ve been training with you, I’ve been-”

“We are not doubting what you can do kid, but this is HYDRA we are talking about, it’s pretty dangerous” Steve said.

“But I can help! You know I can.”

“We know you can kid” This time, it was Tony talking “It’s not that you are not capable, it’s just that you are not ready for something this dangerous. You shouldn’t worry about HYDRA. We don’t really know what to expect there and even though you are getting better at fighting, we just want to keep you safe” 

Peter looked like he wanted to argue but stayed silent and left the room. They all watched him leave. There was not much left to say. 10 minutes later the team consisting on Tony, Steve, Natasha, Sam and Rhodey were all heading for the Quinjet. 

Before getting in, Tony looked for Peter, he was in the lab. He just couldn’t leave him like this. So he approached the kid and said “Pete, I know you want to come with us but you are not ready yet, okay? Just, stay here in the lab and tinker with something. FRI will keep an eye on you”

The kid barely looked his way but said “Just be careful”

“Of course kid. We’ll be right back”

He got into the Quinjet and they took off. Tony wasn’t sure if Peter would actually stay put. Maybe he would try to follow them or do something equally stupid. But he needed to protect the kid. So just to make sure he ordered his AI “FRIDAY, don’t let Peter out of the compound, okay? I don’t want him trying to get out”

“Of course boss”

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to leave him by himself?” Rhodey asked him

“Yeah, he’ll be safe, he’s at the compound. We are the ones going to HYDRA and I’m just keeping him away from it. FRI will keep an eye on him”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if this counts as another cliffhanger? Maybe not. Anyway, I love Peter interacting with the Avengers and them worrying about Peter, being all domestic and caring for him. Let me know what you think. I'll post the next chapter tomorrow. Thank you for your comments and kudos :) they make my day <3000


	7. Mission gone wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit. He was right. Alien tech was unstable and it was way beyond his knowledge. He had been tinkering with it, trying to understand it, but there were things he was still working out. He had assumed that with the damage control department he installed after the battle of New York, they would contain alien stuff from going out to the world. He had obviously been wrong, if what happened with the Vulture was anything to go by. And now HYDRA had managed to put their hands on alien tech as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers go to HYDRA but it is not quite what they were expecting...

It was mostly a silent drive. They all knew what they had to do. Get in the HYDRA facility, take their weapons and deal with their men. Easy. Simple. Nothing they hadn’t done before. They were almost there. Natasha was driving the quinjet. She looked like she had something on her mind so Tony approached her. “What are you thinking?” 

She looked at him. “I’m thinking that this is way too easy.” Natasha answered. “It’s definitely a trap but I’m not sure what they have planned. We can take them out easily and they know that. So there is probably something really bad waiting for us in there that gave them the confidence to let us find them, god knows what we are getting ourselves into” 

As expected, they arrived in less than 30 minutes. They were all thinking about Peter but it was for the best that he stayed safe on the compound. Now it was time to focus on their mission.

The place looked abandoned and it wasn’t that big in the first place. Just an old building. 5 stories tall. Sam and Steve got in first, prepared to fight anyone who might be expecting them but it was silent, it looked like no one was there. 

“FRI scan for heat signatures in the building” Tony said

“There only appears to be one boss. In a hidden room on the third floor”

“What? That’s it? That’s odd. What is the plan?”

“Sam, Rhodey, stay out of the building, keep watch, stay alert, we don’t know what they are planning. Nat, Tony, let’s go see what this is about, be careful, this could be a trap”

They were following FRIDAY’s instructions until they arrived to a dark room and on the other side of it, there was a single man standing. They all raised their weapons as they approached him. “Who are you?” Natasha asked.

The man stayed silent, not expressing anything on his face. He just kept looking at them. 

Steve got closer to the man “What are you waiting for?” 

This time, the man did answer. “The right time”

“The right time for what exactly?” Tony asked.

He stayed silent for a while and then decided to answer, “For the plan to work”

“What plan?” Steve asked.

“This is a trap” Natasha said after staring at the guy for a while “This is what he wants. He is stalling. Making us waste time. Whatever this is about, it’s useless to ask him anything”

She seemed to be correct because the man looked more willing to answer questions to keep them in the room. 

“I’m the distraction”

“What are you talking about?” Steve asked.

“The Avengers compound.” He said “HYDRA is going to infiltrate it”

 _Peter_. Was the first thing Tony thought. But it couldn’t be. It was one of the safest places he could be in. Even if there was something wrong, FRIDAY would tell him. 

“How?” Tony asked him. “It has top security. Even if there was a way you managed to get into the compound -which you couldn’t- I would still know, that’s why your other plan failed. There is no human tech that can surpass FRIDAY or my protocols”

“That might be true. But what about alien tech?”

 _Shit._ He was right. Alien tech was unstable and it was way beyond his knowledge. He had been tinkering with it, trying to understand it, but there were things he was still working out. He had assumed that with the damage control department he installed after the battle of New York, they would contain alien stuff from going out to the world. He had obviously been wrong, if what happened with the Vulture was anything to go by. And now HYDRA had managed to put their hands on alien tech as well. 

“We just needed you out of the compound” The man continued. “We tricked you to leave the place empty. With no one guarding it. You came here expecting a big fight but you just did what we wanted you to do.”

Steve, Nat and Tony looked at each other. The compound wasn’t exactly empty. Peter was on the compound. Alone. If what this man was saying is true, then Peter was by himself against a potential HYDRA attack. 

“FRIDAY call Peter”

“I’m unable to, boss. My systems have been compromised. I can’t connect to the compound.”

“WHAT? Why didn’t you tell me before?!?”

“It appears some of my protocols have been disabled. The mainframe has been affected by something I can’t identify”

The alien tech. They had disabled FRIDAY on the compound with alien tech. Tony was starting to hyperventilate. Peter was at the compound. He needed to get to him now. HYDRA was going to attack the place and there would be no one there that could stop them.

He looked at Steve and Nat “We have to go. NOW”

“It took you 30 minutes to get here. It will take you another 30 to go back. And by the time you do, it will be too late.” The man said with a calm voice.

“SHUT UP” Tony screamed to the man and aimed one of his thrusters at him. The man fell to the ground. Probably unconscious. Or dead. He really didn’t care. He needed to get to Peter, like yesterday.

“Tony, we need to get back to Peter but we also have to search this place to make sure there really is nothing here.” Steve said. “Nat and Sam can stay to check, while Rhodey, you and I go to the compound, okay? Let’s go to the Quinjet”

 

\-------------------▫

 

Peter was upset. He knew the Avengers were kinda right. They just wanted to protect him. HYDRA was a very serious threat. Even if he had been training with them it was probably still a bit too much for him. Admitting it was hard but the last time he tried to do things by his own without asking for help, well, it ended up with a building dropped on him. Actually, with the HYDRA warehouse explosion he also ended up under a building and he had asked Mr. Stark for help. But he was learning from his mistakes. 

He was tinkering with his web shooters without really concentrating on it. His thoughts were on the team. They had left like 20 minutes ago, they should be arriving at the base at any moment now. Peter knew they could take care of themselves, but he was starting to care for them, not just as heroes but as normal people. They had helped him a lot and they had spent a lot of time together for the past few weeks. 

He didn’t know how long it had been when he suddenly heard something arriving outside, like a jet. He looked at the time. It couldn’t be Mr. Stark and the others, it would take them longer to come back. Or maybe they returned early? Or they cancelled the mission? He took his phone and web shooters and went outside the lab to check he hadn’t imagined it. When he arrived at the common area, he saw through one of the windows an unfamiliar and smaller jet outside, at least two dozen armed men coming out of it and trying to get in. That was probably a bad sign. 

“FRIDAY, who are they? What is happening?”

“I’m not sure Peter. I’m starting to detect failures in my system. Something is affecting the mainframe of the building and I’m unable to contact-“ 

“FRI? What the-”

And that is when he saw it. The HYDRA symbol on the men’s clothes and weapons. Oh shit. This was bad. How were they getting in? Why were they even here? The Avengers were the ones supposed to be fighting them. Those men should be at the secret base and-…

Double shit. It had been a trap. A false lead. The Avengers probably went to that location expecting to fight HYDRA when in reality it was a distraction. To keep them away from the compound. Without Vision and Wanda around, they probably assumed they would all leave to the false location, leaving the compound unguarded. But they hadn’t count on him being there.

They were probably there for the weapons they had repeatedly tried to steal. They had shut down FRIDAY so he couldn’t call for help but he could try and stop them from getting what they wanted. He had been working with Mr. Stark as his ‘intern’ and right now he couldn’t be more thankful for that. He knew the codes to get in the storage unit of the weapons and since FRIDAY was compromised, he could manually lock it and keep HYDRA from the Avengers weapons. 

He headed to the vents. He couldn’t let them know he was there so it was better to be quiet. He arrived just in time to override the codes and manually locked the door with all the security protocols Mr. Stark had put in place. He gave a triumphant smile. Now, even without FRIDAY, they couldn’t open that door. No matter what they did.

He was about to go back to the vents and hide until the Avengers came back, but when he turned around he saw the men arriving and they started shooting at him. He avoided most of the bullets with his Spidey Sense but then felt a sudden pain on his left shoulder and knew he was screwed, he fell to the ground and a couple of men grabbed him and put him on his knees. 

One of the men who looked like the leader took one step forward. He decided to call him ‘Bad Guy #1’ in his head since he didn’t know who he was, but he looked important. The man looked at him and raised an eyebrow “Who are you exactly? I assumed this place would be empty”

Peter stayed quiet. This was HYDRA and he was by himself. Literally. Maybe Mr. Stark had figured out what happened and he was on his way. Or maybe not. He needed a plan. But he was really out of options in this situation. 

When the guy realized he wasn’t going to answer, he just shrugged, ignored him and moved forward. “Open the door, let’s do this quickly before they get back”  
He saw them trying to open the door without success, several times. But it wasn’t opening. Bad guy #1 was starting to look exasperated “What is taking you so long? We disabled the AI on the entire place with the alien tech. It’s no longer locked. The door should open just fine” 

“I don’t understand sir, it should open but it actually seems it has several security protocols around it”

“How? If there was no one-” And that is when bad guy #1 turned to look at Peter. _Really_ look at Peter. Saw his web shooters around his arms and probably just figured out who he was. Great. This was his signal. He had to get out of there. 

Ignoring the pain on his shoulder, he stood up, hitting the men that were holding him down. He started fighting anyone that was on his way. He heard bad guy #1 yelling at someone to get something from their jet. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. He fought at least half of the men when he saw more were arriving. The ones from the jet probably. And they had new weapons with what looked like darts on them. _Tranquilizers._ He thought. They were trying to knock him unconscious.

He started running towards the opposite side of where the men were coming from. He needed time. He couldn’t fight them all. He still had a bullet on his shoulder. He had no idea what to do. He was trapped. He saw a door on his way and without having any idea where it would take him, he opened it and got inside. It was just a janitor’s closet. He had to think what to do before the men found where he was. But he was out of ideas. 

He heard the men outside the door. They had found him. They were trying to break the door open until he heard the voice of bad guy #1. He really needed a better name than that, but he had more important problems right now.

“Spiderman.” Said the man through the door. “You are outnumbered and trapped. I assume you are the one who locked the door to the storage of the weapons. This is not the first time you have messed with our plans to acquire what we need. I heard about the Vulture and I heard about the warehouse. And now this? You are making our job harder than it has to be. So I’m going to ask you to open the storage door for us or I’ll be forced to take you to our HYDRA facility to deal with you, since you are starting to be a real inconvenience for us.”

 _Oh shit._ He was in real trouble now. He would not give them the weapons. But he couldn’t go with them either. He took out his phone. No signal. They had probably messed with all communications on the compound. 

He analyzed his situation. He couldn’t get out of the compound. He was trapped. He couldn’t get in contact with anyone to call for help. He could try to fight the men and stall them but he was injured and he could not hold them off much longer. There were probably at least another dozen men surrounding him.

Now a plan was starting to form on his mind. Well, half of a plan. The beginning of one. He could get out and pretend to fight the men, to not give them the codes to open the door. Then, as the man had said, they would take him to a HYDRA facility, probably to get revenge for screwing his plans or get rid of him or something. He could pretend to be unconscious, the tranquilizers they had were probably not for enhanced people. Spiderman’s powers were still a mystery for most of the world so maybe they didn’t know he had an enhanced metabolism. Maybe it wouldn’t work on him, they would take him to the real HYDRA facility, probably where they kept their weapons. The only problem was letting Mr. Stark know where he was. 

He needed something Mr. Stark could track. He took his phone out and started to disarm it to take the tracker out. It was tricky since he only had his hands and not proper tools but he had to work with what he had. He hid it on his socks. It was very unlikely the men would look for something there. Hopefully. 

Now, Mr. Stark could track him. It would lead them to the real facility with the weapons. They would find him and destroy the HYDRA base. Easy. He only hoped this would actually work. Either way, it was the best option he had at the moment. 

He took a deep breath and opened the door. The guns were pointed at him and bad guy #1 spoke “Well, look who decided to cooperate. Unlock the door Spiderman”

“Yeah, that won’t be happening” And he started to avoid the bullets and web up a few men until he felt a twinge of pain and he saw the little needle on his arm. They had shot a tranquilizer on him. Like he had expected they would. He could only pray his body would metabolize it quickly so he wouldn’t fall unconscious. He felt a little dizzy and sleepy but he was still awake. His enhanced metabolism was probably trying to fight it off. Good. Now, he would have to pretend to be asleep or something. If they shot more of those things at him maybe it would actually work to knock him out. Or maybe they could overdose him, he didn’t know how those things worked but it was better to be safe. So he just tried to stumble for a bit, like he had trouble walking and then closed his eyes and pretended to collapse on the floor. 

Apparently it looked believable because he heard bad guy #1 say “Take him. Since we didn’t get the weapons, maybe this will be worth something and he will stay out of our way”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okaaaaay that happened. I really like this chapter and it kinda sets the story for everything else that is coming. Unfortunately i have 5 final tests on Tuesday and the official closure of my semester on Wednesday so I probably won’t be able to update until Thursday or Friday. Sorry for the long wait but hopefully it will be worth it. Have a good day :)


	8. HYDRA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony watched the footage. FRIDAY had been unable to communicate with them but she did record everything that had happened. On the screen, he saw Peter in the lab working on his web shooters. Then, he saw him realize something was wrong with FRIDAY, the jet and the men. He saw him crawl through the vents towards the door of the storage unit of the weapons and lock it. The men attacking him and Peter getting shot. Hiding in the janitor’s closet, being drugged with something and being dragged to their jet. They had taken him to god knows where.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes! I'm finally free from finals and i am able to update again. Sorry for the long wait but this chapter is pretty long and a lot of things happen so i hope this makes up for it! Thank you for all your comments and kind words :) i love you 3000

They were on their way back. Steve was flying the Quinjet as fast as he could but not fast enough for Tony. He was really close to just leave them and go to the compound by himself but this suit was not designed for long flights. He had been prepared for a big fight against HYDRA, not for flying 30 minutes back to the compound at maximum speed. 

They were all worried for the kid, you could tell just by looking at their faces. Sam and Nat had stayed to check the abandoned facility but they were concerned for Peter too. They had left the kid alone and if something bad happened to him that would be on them. 

“I know what you are thinking, but it isn’t your fault” Rhodey said after a while

“Yes it is.” Tony sighed “Rhodey, he is by himself against a potential HYDRA attack. He asked to come with us but we said no. I said no. If only we had taken him with us this wouldn't be hapenning. I could have kept an eye on him but now i have no way of knowing if he is okay. I know he is a good fighter but this is a bit too much and if something happens to him, it would be my fault”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, okay? We are on our way back. Maybe the kid realized what was happening and is now hiding, waiting for us to come back.”

“He is definitely not hiding. I know him and as soon as he sees there is something wrong, he is going to follow it. No matter what. He doesn’t think about the consequences. He is like a magnet for finding trouble ”

“Wonder who he reminds me of” Rhodey said with a smirk

“Shut up” Tony answered with no real heat. 

“He will be fine. And if he is not then we’ll fix it”

After a very stressful flight back and Tony trying to fix FRIDAY to at least try and communicate with Peter, with no success, they finally arrived at the compound 20 minutes later. 

The first thing Tony did was go to the lab where he last saw Peter. When he didn’t find him there, he started to look all around the living area, in case Peter was hidden somewhere at the compound. Steve and Rhodey were looking through the place as well. 

He had no idea what could have happened but he needed answers. Peter had to be somewhere, even if he just fought the men. Tony just hoped he wasn’t hurt. FRIDAY had been disabled from functioning properly at the compound but maybe she still recorded what had happened, so he went to the mainframe of the building to see what had caused the failure in her systems. It was, indeed, a strange looking device with a glowing purple core. Alien tech. He broke it and FRIDAY was fully functional again. 

“FRI give me a location on Peter”

“I’m sorry boss but he is not currently at the compound. His last known location was a janitor’s closet near the weapon’s storage unit.”

Shit. The weapons. He had been so worried about Peter that he hadn’t stopped to think about what HYDRA was taking from the compound. Of course it was the weapons. They had tried to steal them several times. And the kid had always managed to stop them. He hurried over the place FRIDAY directed him to and stopped on his tracks when he saw the mess around him. There were webs everywhere, broken things all over the place, a clear sign of a fight and bullet holes on the walls. But what scared him the most was the blood on the floor. There were little droplets near the door of the storage room. Was it Peter’s? He needed to find the kid. He ran towards the janitor’s closet FRIDAY told him Peter had been and found it empty. No Peter inside. But there were more droplets of blood, Peter’s web shooters and a broken phone on the floor. He picked it up. It was Peter’s phone.

He swore. They had taken him. HYDRA had taken Peter. And probably the weapons too. And the kid was shot, if the blood was anything to go by. He had expected to find Peter fighting HYDRA or even hurt after failing to stop them. He never would have imagined that they would take the kid. But if they knew he was Spiderman, he could be in real trouble. He failed to protect him. The man at HYDRA had been right. They were too late.

 

\-------------------▫

 

Peter was awake the whole time. He felt the HYDRA agents taking him to the jet. Inspecting him for any technology he could have on his pockets or clothes. He had left his web shooters on the janitor’s closet with his broken phone. He couldn’t let HYDRA get their hands on that. Luckily, as he had expected, they hadn’t checked his socks. At least Mr. Stark could track him. 

He also felt them wrapping his shoulder in some bandages and he had to use all his will and strength to not scream in pain. The bullet was still inside his shoulder. Maybe they didn’t want him bleeding out before they did whatever they had planned for him. Peter wasn’t sure exactly how long it had been since they took him but it definitely was longer than an hour. He wasn’t sure when he was supposed to be waking up either, since the men thought he was unconscious. 

“How long until he arrive?” He heard bad guy #1 ask

“Only 20 more minutes sir.” One of his men answered. ”There is also a calling request from Viktor sir, he says he wants to ask you about the mission”

“Accept it. I need to update him in the change of plans”

Suddenly he heard a new voice, he kinda had a Russian accent, probably this new Viktor guy. 

“Frank. I hope the mission went well and you are returning with the weapons as I asked you”

“There was a little inconvenient. The place was not empty as we had assumed.”

“What? The Avengers fell for our trap and went to the wrong facility. And the alien device I invented turned off the security of the place. What could have stopped you from taking what we needed?"

“Spiderman” Bad guy #1 answered. No, apparently his name was Frank. Well, now he could stop calling him that. 

“Again? How was he even there?”

“I don’t know but he locked the door with security protocols we couldn’t disable even without the AI. He fought some of our men but we managed to catch him and we are taking him to the base”

“That was not the plan Frank. We don’t need a prisoner. We need new weapons.”

“I know, but maybe we can use his abilities to our advantage. We don’t know all his powers but he is strong and a good fighter. You like creating new things. Maybe you can find what made him the way he is and formulate a serum to create more like him and HYDRA could finally be back to what it used to be.”

This Viktor guy seemed to think about the idea for a while. “Yes, i’m interested in him. Analyzing his blood and how his body works will probably be a good way to study super strength and how it affected him. With soldiers like him, we wouldn’t need so many weapons and trained agents.” 

Wait a minute, they wanted to experiment on him? To create soldiers with super strength? He thought they were going to torture him or keep him prisoner or something like that but a lab rat was not one of his options. He couldn’t let them do that. Who knows what they could find from it or if they could actually manage to create something like that. 

“Unfortunately” Viktor continued “We are not really prepared to hold him hostage. I have what I need to run some tests and experiments on him but we don’t know the extent of his powers.”

“That won’t be a problem. We shot a tranquilizer on him. The one we have been working on for enhanced people. And it worked. Even with his powers we can keep him under control.” And they ended the call.

Ha. Now the joke was on them. Whatever drug they had used hadn’t really worked. Maybe he had a chance. They weren’t prepared to hold him hostage. He had to choose right the moment to attack. His advantage was that they didn’t know what he could really do. Once they did, they would take more precautions. He wasn’t sure if he should wait until the Avengers arrived and risk them experiment on him or if he should start fighting the second he got to the location of the new facility. Guess he would have to improvise. 

 

\-------------------▫

 

Tony watched the footage. FRIDAY had been unable to communicate with them but she did record everything that had happened. On the screen, he saw Peter in the lab working on his web shooters. Then, he saw him realize something was wrong with FRIDAY, the jet and the men. He saw him crawl through the vents towards the door of the storage unit of the weapons and lock it. The men attacking him and Peter getting shot. Hiding in the janitor’s closet, being drugged with something and being dragged to their jet. They had taken him to god knows where. 

He had called May. She screamed at him, worried about Peter, guess he deserved it. She told him to do everything in his power to find her boy and keep her updated. 

It was getting late. Tony had been trying to find Peter with his tech and suit and everything available with no success when Natasha and Sam arrived a couple of hours later. They hadn’t found anything in the facility. It had been a waste of time. A trick to keep them away from the compound. And it had worked. Peter was missing and Tony had no idea what to do. At least they didn’t get the weapons, thanks to the kid, but now he was gone and shot and Tony didn’t know where to start looking. 

Natasha offered to see the footage with him again, just in case he missed something. It was already Friday night and they had no leads, no plan. Nothing, nada, zero. 

“We left him here alone” Tony said while the footage played on the screens again. 

“We couldn’t have known Tony. We thought we were keeping him safe from HYDRA” Natasha said

“He asked to go with us. We said no. Repeatedly. If we had just taken him with us, he would still be here. We could have protected him”

“i know, but he can protect himself Tony. He is strong and we have been training him. And wherever he is, we are going to find him”

Natasha keptp replaying the part when the men had taken Peter after drugging him. He had already seen that part. Several times. There was nothing on it that could help them find Peter but she seemed to find it interesting. 

He was playing with Peter’s broken phone in his hands while Natasha saw the footage again. He didn’t know how to find the boy. His mind was stressing about Peter while inspecting the broken phone and he realized that it wasn’t broken from the fight. It looked like someone had purposefully taken it apart. Like Peter had taken it apart.

After a couple of minutes of trying to put the pieces back together, he realized that the only thing missing was the tracker of the phone. He asked FRIDAY to show him the footage of the inside of the janitor’s closet, he hadn’t seen what Peter was doing in there but maybe if he had managed to keep the tracker on him, he could find him. He saw Peter destroy his phone and effectively, take the tracker off the phone and hid it on his sock. Yes! The kid was brilliant. Now he could track him and find him.

“He has a tracker on him.” He suddenly said. Natasha raised an eyebrow “He has a tracker on him!!" He repeated louder this time. "He managed to hide a tracker on his sock. If he still has it, we can find him” He stood up to go get the team together when Natasha took his hand and sat him back down. He was about to protest but she pointed at something on the screen.

“Look. Here.” She pointed at Peter falling to the ground after being shot with the tranquilizer. “He is pretending. They didn’t knock him out.”

“What? How can you tell?”

“It doesn’t look natural. I have fought with him. Trained him. That is not how he moves, not naturally. He is pretending to be unconscious” She said with absolute certainty. He didn’t care if Peter was pretending or not, he needed to find the kid and now they had a way to do it so they went to talk with the team about what they had found. 

“So you are telling me that he let himself be caught? Why would he do that?” Sam asked

“It’s actually pretty smart” Natasha said. They all looked at her like she was crazy and she just rolled her eyes. 

“What else could he have done?” Nat said to everyone in the room. “He stopped them from getting the weapons. He locked the access to that room and they caught him. He had to improvise and fight but he was outnumbered. He couldn’t possibly win that fight and he couldn’t stall them until we got back, he didn’t even know when we were going to be back. If he didn’t cooperate they would have killed him and if he cooperated then HYDRA would have our weapons. He was alone. Maybe he realized that whatever drug they put on the tranquilizers wouldn’t work on him. He took the tracker from his phone so we could find him and then let himself be caught and pretended to be unconscious for the men to take him. Now when we go find him, we save Peter and take down the real HYDRA base”

“Huh. When you put it like that, yeah, it was probably a smart move” Sam said after a while.

“So, where is he?” Rhodey asked

“I’m working on it.” Tony answered. “Even though Peter was clever enough to think of a tracker, HYDRA still has some alien tech that is interfering with the signal. FRI is trying to work past it, it should be only a couple more minutes”

“As soon as we have a location, we go after him” Steve said

Effectively, a couple of minutes later, FRIDAY gave them a location “Sir, the tracker seems to be in the outskirts of Detroit, in a building under the name of Viktor Ivanov. He is a Russian scientist and inventor”

“He is probably the one who created the device with alien tech” Rhodey said

“Yeah, well, what are we waiting for? Let’s head to the Quinjet, it’s almost a two hour flight and I need to get to my kid”

They all looked at him, shocked by the way Tony had referred to Peter. He didn’t seem to notice he called Peter ‘his kid’ but they weren’t going to correct him. They all just shared a knowing smile and got ready to save him. 

 

\-------------------▫

 

When they finally arrived to the real facility, Peter was pretending to be waking up from the ‘tranquilizer’ so he could see exactly where they were taking him. He kept walking and taking a mental note of the turns they were taking, letting the men guide him through the building. He was probably on the second or third floor when he saw they passed a large window. It wasn’t exactly what he thought a HYDRA base would look like. He had imagined cold dungeons or creepy secret basements but this looked almost normal. 

The men took him to one of the many rooms on a hallway. When they opened the door he saw that it was mostly empty. There were a couple of chairs and a table between them on the middle of the room. They sat him down on one of the chairs, tied his hands and legs with handcuffs. Then they left the room and he was alone. 

They had tied him with special handcuffs, he could tell it was a stronger metal than normal but if he concentrated and used his powers, he could probably just break them and escape. Still, he wasn’t sure if he should wait for the Avengers to arrive or if he should be trying to escape already. While he was deciding the pros and cons of what to do, a man with a lab coat opened the door.

“Hello Spiderman” He recognized the voice. It was the guy Frank was talking to earlier. He recognized the Russian accent. His name was Viktor or something. He was the one who messed with the alien tech and wanted to use him to create super strong soldiers for HYDRA. “I have to admit, I had not expected to find a child behind the mask. I was told you are the reason why we didn’t get what we wanted. You have messed up with our plans more than anyone. You always seem to be at the right place at the right time to stop us” He approached the door and called more men into the room “But now you will actually help us.” 

Peter could break the handcuffs. Set himself free, but he didn’t know where the Avengers were. Even if he could escape the building, he had no idea where he was. The flight to take him here had been at least a couple of hours so wherever he was, he was far from New York He needed to keep pretending a little longer to buy the team more time to find him. 

The men started to restrain him while Viktor took some of his blood. “I will be performing a series of tests to evaluate your strength Spiderman. I hope you cooperate. No one will find you here and it will be better if you just do what we tell you to do” And with that, they all left the room, leaving him alone again.

 

\-------------------▫

 

It was almost midnight when Frank walked into Viktor’s lab “So, what have you found? You have been here for a while” 

“His blood it’s really interesting.” Viktor said looking up from his microscope. “His DNA has been altered and mutated with a spider. It’s probably what gave him his powers. I will analyze it more to find what we can do to replicate it”

“That’s good right? We can use it”

“Yes we can. I’m waiting for the results on another couple of tests. I’m just doing the basic experiments on his DNA and we’ll start from there. I do want to do some physical tests on him too, to find the extent of all his powers and abilities” Viktor says while one of his machines sounds with a notification.

“What was that?” Frank asked

“That was the basic DNA test. To find his blood type, to know how the spider affected his blood cells, to compare his blood to others we have on our data base to search similarities, things like that” He answered while looking at the results and raising his eyebrows. “Oh wow, I did not see this coming”

“What is it? What does it say?”

Frank took the results from Viktor’s hand and started reading until his eyes reached the information none of them expected to find. Following the findings of the machine of the kid’s blood, he got to the part where it showed it had similarities with someone else’s.

_Compared with Anthony Edward Stark. Probability of paternity: 99.98%_

“What? How did you even get Iron Man’s blood to compare it to this kid?”

“In some past Avenger’s mission where he was hurt. We were able to salvage some of it and kept it in our data base. There was nothing interesting on it until now.”

“Spiderman is Stark’s kid. So what?”

“We can use this to our advantage”

“How?”

“If this kid is Stark’s son then he will do whatever it takes to save him. We can use this kid to not only create super soldiers but to demand the weapons from Stark.” He said with an evil smile “This is almost too perfect”

 

\-------------------▫

 

After what felt like forever, the man, Viktor, came back into the room. He had a creepy smile on his face. Like everything on his plan was working perfectly. Well, he had another thing coming. It has been longer than two hours for sure and Peter was tired, but he couldn’t wait any longer. He can’t let them experiment on him. He already managed to break the handcuffs on both his hands and legs. He was just pretending to be tied to the chair but so far no one had noticed. They were way too confident on themselves, if they don’t think he can escape. He tried to buy the Avengers time to find him but now he had to leave this place. As soon as he had a chance, he was getting the hell out of here. 

“I found some interesting things on your DNA Spiderman.” Viktor started telling him “I didn’t expect it at all. How you managed to keep it secret for as long as you have. No one would have seen it coming”

Peter just frowned at the man. He had no idea what he was talking about. Maybe he found his altered DNA but there was nothing new about that. What secret was he talking about? Either way, he needed to get out of there now or this guy was going to call more men and start to experiment on him like a lab rat. He couldn’t hear that many people behind the door with his enhanced hearing so maybe if he fought now, he could take them down, escape the building and with the tracker the team would find him. Viktor was distracted on his ‘evil guy monologue’ so he decided to take this as an opportunity to take the man down. Viktor had not been expecting it and he was not really a good fighter. Huh, the guy was probably just a crazy scientist and not a trained HYDRA agent. He punched his face and left the guy with a broken nose on the floor. So that was easy. When he opened the door to the hallway, he was immediately seen by more HYDRA agents who started chasing after him.

He didn’t know where the way out was. He had a general idea of where the men had taken him at first but with all of them running after him, he didn’t really remember much of how to get out and now the place looked like a maze. He kept running and fighting his way out when a loud alarm sounded on the building, maybe to let everyone know he had escaped. He reached another floor, the one with the large window on it. There were more men arriving at each side of him so he did the only thing his mind could come up with. He took impulse to break the glass and jumped out of the window.

 

\-------------------▫

 

The Avengers were ready to attack the base. Steve and Sam would go first to fight and distract the men while Tony looked for Peter. Rhodey would install explosives around the place so they could destroy the base once they were out of there and Natasha was going to their mainframe to hack their computers for any information they may have. It was a simple plan.

When they arrived at their base, they all separated to do their respective jobs. Tony used Peter’s tracker to know the location of the HYDRA base but the signal was interrupted by alien tech -he would have to look into that later- so he didn’t have a specific location on Peter. 

He was just fighting some man he found on the second floor when he heard a bunch of men running towards a specific floor, he followed them to a room with a couple of chairs and broken handcuffs on the floor, probably where they tried to held Peter. There was a man with a broken nose trying to stand up, FRIDAY recognized him as Viktor Ivanov, he must be important for HYDRA, creating new weapons and ways for them to be more powerful. The man looked at him and with a confused face asked “How did you find us?”

“Simple. My kid is smarter than all of you” And with that, aimed his thrusters at the man and fired. 

“Tony, did you find Peter?” Steve asked on their coms

“I found the room he was being kept but apparently he already escaped”

Suddenly a loud alarm sounded all over the place and afterwards, the sound of a window breaking and someone falling. He followed the sound of the broken glass and found Peter sticking to the side of a wall with one hand, close to hitting the ground. 

“Peter?! Kid! Oh god, are you okay?”

“Oh, hey Mr. Stark, I guess you found the tracker and-“ He lost the grip he had on the wall and fell to the ground.

“Peter!! Be careful kid, what did they do to you? Anything broken?”

“Um, yeah, I’m fine and I don’t think anything’s broken but I do have a bullet inside my shoulder?”

“Oh kid, you are going to give me a heart attack someday. C’mon. Let’s head to the Quinjet. Everyone has been worried about you”

“I knew you would find me” Peter said

“Of course kiddo, I will always find you.”

They reunited with the team on the Quinjet, and when they were far enough, Rhodey activated the bombs and destroyed everything on their base and Peter was finally able to close his eyes and rest.

 

\-------------------▫

 

“Any sign of Viktor?”

“No sir. I think he didn’t get out before the explosion happened”

Frank saw the few men that had managed to escape the explosion of their base. It was scarcely half of the men they originally had. They barely had time to take some weapons and tech before getting away and the Avengers invaded the place and set it on fire. But now he had a plan. He was going to use Spiderman against them. After all, he was Stark’s kid. A plan started to form on his mind. And next time, he would be ready. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as a lot of you guessed early on the story, Peter is Tony's biological kid :) but neither of them knows it hehe there is a lot happening in the next and final chapters so let me know what you think <3 I’ll try to update tomorrow
> 
> Edit: Guys sorry i haven't been able to update and finish the last two chapters, i have some of it written but it's not ready yet and i don't want to rush it so have a little patience with me :)


	9. Find what is missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While he was on a rooftop, waiting for something to happen, he felt his Spidey sense start to warn him about something. Nothing too intense, just a tingle on the back of his head. This was not the first time it had happened. Lately, he felt his senses caution him about something but he could never really tell what it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive! I’m back! Sorry for the long wait but the chapter wasn’t ready and I didn’t want to rush the story. But here it is. Finally :) As for the timeline, let’s pretend all of this is happening on November 2016. Now this final two chapters are pretty long so I hope you enjoy

Peter had slept all the way back to the compound. And Tony was breathing normally again. He had been so worried about the kid being captured by HYDRA that he couldn’t really care about anything else until they found Peter, but the kid had kinda escaped by himself. He knew he was very capable of holding his own, he had been training with them but it had been pretty amazing everything he had done. He stopped HYDRA from getting the Avengers’ weapons, he was sort of kidnapped by them but he used it as a chance to direct the team towards the real HYDRA facility and managed to escape on his own. To be honest, they had been there mostly to take Peter back to New York and destroy the base. Peter had done most of their work, by _improvising._

Now he was safe. Peter was still asleep when they arrived at the compound and Tony didn’t want to wake him so he carried him to the Med Bay to have Helen take care of the kid. He still had the bullet on his shoulder so Helen used some pretty strong drugs to put him under for a while and take the bullet out. And now the kid was just resting and recovering. 

He had called May and told her what happened. This time, she didn’t yell at him so he took it as a win. She would arrive in the morning to see Peter. Tony didn’t leave Peter’s side from the Med Bay. He stayed the night watching over the kid while the others went to sleep. It had been a very stressful day but at least they got Peter back and destroyed the HYDRA base. 

It was now Saturday morning and Peter had just woken up with Tony resting in the chair next to him. He was checked by doctor Cho and after a quick physical exam and with his shoulder mostly healed, he was allowed to leave the Med Bay. Getting on his feet, he followed Tony out of the room to the kitchen for breakfast.

“Pete, how are you? Really? You were taken by HYDRA and I know that can be scary”

“I’m fine Mr. Stark really. You don’t have to worry about me. I mean, it was kinda terrifying at first because I didn’t know what to do and I was alone but after locking the door and making sure they didn’t get the weapons, i mostly just improvised and went with whatever I could come up with”

“I think Peter was pretty smart.” Natasha suddenly appeared by the door and grabbed an apple from the counter. “And surely he knew we would figure out where he was so he wasn’t really worried, right Pete?”

“Um… sure? Is that a trick question?”

She smiled at him. “I’m messing with you Pete. You did a good job. Everyone on the team wants to see you. We were all worried. So finish your breakfast with Tony here and afterwards you should head to the common room. They all want to see you are okay” And left the room for them to talk. 

Peter saw her leave and muttered “The Avengers want to check on me to see if I’m okay. I never thought I would say those words.” Peter said, kinda fanboying over his heroes. 

“Yeah well, you scared all of us Pete. Even if you got out of trouble by yourself and stopped HYDRA from getting the weapons and everything. Nat was right. You did a good job. But i still want to apologize kid. We were supposed to hang around the lab and train and have a fun weekend at the compound but instead you got taken by HYDRA because we left you here alone and if something had happened to you-…“

“Mr. Stark, it wasn’t your fault! You let me here at the compound because you thought it was safer for me, I don’t blame you at all”

“Don’t interrupt me while I’m trying to-“

“Peter? Oh my god, are you okay?” They both turned around to see May entering the room and Peter immediately went to hug her.

“Aunt May!! Yeah i’m fine, don’t worry.”

“Peter you were kidnapped!! When Tony called me yesterday to tell me I… I didn’t know what to think! He didn’t know where you were and I was so worried and-“

“May, relax, I’m okay, really. Mr. Stark and the others got me out” May finally addressed the other man in the room

“Tony, hi, i-“

“Hey May, I didn’t know you had arrived”

“Your AI was kind enough to let me in.” She looked over at Peter “I was so worried Pete, are you sure you are okay?” She asked checking her nephew for injuries, with Peter assuring her that he was fine, then with a satisfied smile, she addressed Stark “Also, I wanted to apologize Tony. I yelled at you when you called me yesterday about Peter, I was freaking out and just… I wanted to thank you, I know you did everything you could to find him”

“It’s okay May, really. I get it. Don’t worry about it. Peter was pretty smart and we actually found him because he thought of hiding a tracker on his sock. They didn’t see that happening and we were able to track him”

“But how did they know he would be here alone?” May asked

“They didn’t. They weren’t actually here for him. They were here to steal our weapons but Peter got in their way and they took him instead.” Tony answered

“Yeah, about that… They know who I am. Even if they don’t know my name they’ve seen my face and they know I’m Spiderman” Peter said

“I know kid. And I was waiting for May to arrive to discuss this. I was thinking that you guys should stay at the tower until this whole HYDRA thing calms down a bit”

“What? Stark, you know I have to work and even if Peter is on a break right now, he will have to go to school. We can’t just-“

“I know May I know. It’s not ideal but this is serious. If they discover Peter’s identity you could both be at risk. You can both do your normal activities but at the tower there will always be someone keeping an eye on you. We destroyed their base but some of them escaped before we got to them and we don’t know what they will do next. So this is just a precaution, to keep you both safe”

“Mr. Stark, that is very kind of you but you shouldn’t have to-“

“I don’t have to, Peter, I want to, okay? You have no idea how stressed I was this last few hours. By the way, I’m also building you a watch for you to have at all times. It will have a panic button on it so you can call me in case of an emergency”

So it was decided that May and Peter would stay at the tower until HYDRA was no longer a threat. Neither of them were particularly excited with the idea, mostly because it felt like they were exaggerating the situation but better be safe than sorry. 

After breakfast, Peter and Tony went to take a shower and got ready to talk with the team. Wanda ran to meet them first “Peter! We came back as soon as we heard what happened! Are you okay?” 

“Yeah Wanda I’m okay, you guys didn’t have to come all the way back for this”

“I called them to let them know what was happening and they wanted to come check on you” Rhodey said with a smile “We are just glad to see you are okay”

Following the team’s hellos and hugs to Peter, they started to discuss what had happened the day before. 

“Did they say something to you? And what did they do while you were there?” Steve asked

“They didn’t do much. They took my blood and I think they wanted to experiment on me or something to figure out how to replicate the spider bite so they would have soldiers with super strength. The guy said they found something interesting in my DNA but I didn’t really stay and ask. And i kinda broke his nose.”

“Wait a second, WHAT? They wanted to experiment on you? Why didn’t you say something before?”

“Eem, they didn’t really get to do anything more than to take some blood so it wasn’t that bad, I escaped before they could do anything else”

Tony sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose “Hopefully, without this Viktor guy around, they won’t be able to recreate anything like that.” Tony answered. “Nat, what have you found from the information you took from them?”

“Not much Tony. I still have to look into it. They are mostly encrypted files and coded information. It will take a while to decode.”

“You know I’m a literal genius with an AI that can crack almost any code?”

She gave him an unamused smile “I know Tony. But this is HYDRA. Some of their files have tricky codes and fake files to keep anyone from reading them. So I better do it the old way, by myself”  
“Have it your way, I guess.”

“We have to stay alert but i don’t think they will attack for a while.” Steve said “They don’t really have the means or the people to do it but still, we will keep an eye on HYDRA activity, just in case they plan something” 

 

\-------------------▫

 

It has been a week since Peter and May moved into the tower. Everything’s been pretty much the same. May has gone to work every day and Peter is either training with someone at the gym or working in the lab with Tony. He is still going out as Spiderman with a ridiculously early curfew and with the condition of using the watch Tony made for him. Literally all the Avengers will be alerted if he presses that button. Does he think it’s a little bit too much? Definitely. Will Tony let him out of his sight if he doesn’t wear it? Probably not. 

He started seeing Mr. Stark every day and now it was a constant in his life to be around the man. He felt comfortable and safe in his presence. It was weird to realize that he kinda saw Mr. Stark as a father figure. He was freaking out a bit when they had been on the lab one time and Tony had ruffled his hair with a smile on his face. It was such a dad move that Peter was left thinking about it all night and decided to talk to May the next day. 

“So what exactly has you worried about it?”

“It’s just… maybe… I think… I’m starting to see him as… like… uh”

“Like a father figure?”

“Well, uh, yeah?”

“Peter, there is nothing wrong with that, honey. He cares a lot about you and I think is good to have someone like him watching over you”

“You mean… you don’t mind? I mean, I don’t want to replace Ben or my parents or you. You know I love you more than anything but-”

“Pete, you could never replace them or me. I know you love them and you always will but there is always a place for more people to love and to care about. And I’m glad Tony is one of those people. I know I wasn’t his biggest fan but I’ve seen the way he is around you. So don’t be embarrassed about it, okay? Actually, you should talk to him”

“What? No, May are you crazy? What if he doesn’t see me the same way? It would be so awkward between us.”

May just had to roll her eyes. For geniuses, both Peter and Tony were incredibly stupid when it came to emotions. Everyone around them could see how much they cared for each other. The only ones who didn’t notice or that didn’t acknowledge it, were Tony and Peter themselves.

“Don’t worry about it Pete. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind”

 

\-------------------▫

 

Peter had been living at the tower for a week but he's been over to Ned’s a couple of times. He is still on winter break and he just can’t stay all day inside anymore. It was cool at first, hanging with Mr. Stark and the Avengers everyday but now he just needed to get out. Tony checked up on him every hour. May had also been asking for updates but not as much as Tony. Together they were taking Helicopter parenting to a whole new level. 

He arrived at Ned’s house after Happy dropped him off to start building a new Lego set Ned’s parents got for him. “Peter I need details!” Ned started when they were in his room “You barely told me anything over the phone! You were kidnapped by HYDRA? And now you are living at the Stark Tower with the Avengers?”

“Well, yeah. HYDRA tried to take some weapons from the compound but I stopped them and they took me instead. They wanted to experiment on me or something, I didn’t stay to find out what exactly they wanted to do. I escaped and the team arrived to destroy their base but some of them escaped and we don’t know what they could do, so for now, May and i are staying at the tower. But not all the team is there. Wanda, Vision, Sam and Steve are upstate, at the compound, keeping an eye on things. Natasha, Rhodey and Tony are here, and obviously Pepper and Aunt May”

“That is so cool! You are on a first name basis with _the Avengers._ You are living with them! How does Iron Man have his coffee? Does Black Widow sleep at all? I mean, she is a super spy, maybe she can-“

“Ned, of course she needs to sleep. She is been working on decrypting some files from that HYDRA base. And she is still helping me train, which is really cool.”

“Oh man, I’m so happy for you! You get to train with the Avengers and- and you work with Tony Stark! And now you are under the protection of earth’s mightiest heroes because a secret terrorist group might be after you! I mean, it’s not great but what even is your life?”

Peter smiled at his friend’s enthusiasm “I don’t even know anymore.”

“Oh, MJ told me to remind you to ask permission for the ‘Holiday Decathlon Meeting”

Peter frowned at that “The what?”

“Yeah, remember she mentioned she had been thinking of register the team for it? It’s in like, a week. On December first I think”

He had completely forgot about it with everything that had been going on “That’s next Thursday. Why do we even need to go on a competition? We are on vacation”

“I know. It’s not technically a competition per say. It’s more like a friendly tournament. To prepare ourselves for the real thing next year. It’s not mandatory, I guess, since the school year is over but it will be fun. There are several other school’s teams going”

“Okay, I’ll ask. I don’t really want to stay hidden at the tower anymore. It’s driving me crazy.”

“Are you going out as Spiderman at all?”

“I am. Actually, when we finish here I’m going for a short patrol before my curfew at 9pm. They really are taking this seriously”

“They are worried about you. Wait, who set the curfew? May?”

“May and Mr. Stark. They are both being incredibly overprotective”

“Tony Stark is being an overprotective dad to you. That is so cool”

“He is not an overprotective dad, he is just… uh… keeping an eye on what I do so I don’t get kidnapped again?”

“Peter, he is totally acting like an overprotective parent, along with May”

Peter just wanted to avoid the subject, he still felt weird thinking about Mr. Stark as a father figure. He ate dinner at Ned’s and thanked his parents. When they were almost done with the Lego set, they agreed to finish it some other time so he could go out on patrol. He left Ned’s house and changed into his Spiderman suit, the one made by him and Mr. Stark and headed to go on patrol. 

While he was on a rooftop, waiting for something to happen, he felt his Spidey sense start to warn him about something. Nothing too intense, just a tingle on the back of his head. This was not the first time it had happened. Lately, he felt his senses caution him about something but he could never really tell what it was. 

When he turned his head looking for whatever it was, he thought he saw a man looking at him but in a few seconds he was gone. When he went to investigate the place he had seen the man, it was empty, like he had imagined it. But he was sure whoever this person was, was watching him. 

He should probably talk to Mr. Stark about it. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. His Spidey sense was rarely wrong and if they had told him he was in danger, then he probably was and he shouldn’t ignore it. So he headed to the tower to talk with Tony.

 

\-------------------▫

 

Tony had been on his lab all evening. May was at work as usual and Peter had gone to visit his friend Ted or something. Happy had dropped him off and then the kid would go to do his Spiderman thing until 9pm. 

He had built a watch for the kid, to keep an eye on him. He knew the kid was smart and strong but he didn’t like the thought of HYDRA knowing who he was, even if they didn’t know his name. So it was better for Peter to have it in case of an emergency. 

He was working on the Iron Spider, a new suit for the kid with nano tech, when Rhodey came by the lab. “Natasha cracked another file, it had another location” His friend told him as he came in. 

“And let me guess. It was empty too” Natasha was working on decoding the files they found encrypted about HYDRA. She had found some locations, possible secret HYDRA facilities, but when they went to check them out, they were all empty. 

“They probably know we found those files and are hiding in different places. They can’t be that stupid, to stay at a place they know we will find. She is still working on it, but whatever information they had, seems to be old dated and not really useful so far.” Rhodey told him

“How long until she finishes it?”

“I think she is almost done with it. There is only a couple of files left to decode.”

“Okay thanks. Let me know if you find anything”

“Sure thing. You should get out of the lab, eat something. Where is Peter?”

“He is at his friend’s house. And then he is going out as Spiderman”

“And you just let him be by himself?”

“Uh well, yeah. Kinda”

His friend gave him a knowing look. “You put a tracker on his suit, didn’t you?”

“Among other things”

“Wow. Who would have guessed? Tony Stark is a helicopter parent”

“What? I am not a helicopter parent. Actually, I’m not a parent at all. I’m just making sure the kid doesn’t kill himself and keeping an eye on things and-“

Rhodey just raised his eyebrow at him and gave him a look that said he wasn’t fooling anyone, then with a smile, he added “Hey, there is nothing wrong with looking out for him. You care for him and you are keeping him safe.”

“You think?”

“Yeah. I think you are doing a good job. And May certainly appreciates it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was talking to her the other day, she noticed how much you care about Peter and told me that the fact that you are looking out for him is making her feel better about him being Spiderman”

“Really? She said that?”

“Yeah man. She trusts Peter with you”

“Huh” May trusted him to keep Peter safe. He must be doing something right after all if the woman didn’t hate him.

“What are you doing?”

“Updating Peter’s suit. Actually, I’m building him a new one”

“Is that nano tech? I thought you were using it to build another Iron Man armor”

“I did and it’s done, so now I’m building an Iron Spider”

“Iron Spider? Really?”

“Yeah. It’s a cool name. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like, I don’t know, you are smiling. Why are you smiling?”

“No reason.” Rhodey said pretending not to be glad his friend was acting like a dad to Peter, and that it was a good look on him “I’ll go help Nat with those missing files. It might take a while, who knows if it’s even important but-“

“Yeah sure, good luck”

He was by himself for another 20 minutes when Pepper came down to see him and probably try and drag him out of the lab “Hey Tony.”

“Hey Pep.” He said quickly glancing up to smile at her to keep working on Peter’s new suit.

“You should come upstairs to eat something. You’ve been down here for a while”

“Yeah, I’ll be up when I’m done with this”

“Rhodey told me you were working on a suit for Peter. Any reason why?”

“Well, not particularly. Just upgrading some things”

She stood there, watching him work on Peter’s web shooters for a couple of minutes until Tony felt her staring and smiling at him. So he put down what he was working on and asked her “Okay, now you look like Rhodey. Why are you smiling at me?”

“It’s a good look on you”

“What is?”

“A father”

“What? No. Nope. I’m not a father. You are spending way too much time with Rhodey.”

“I think you are” Not bothered by Tony’s denial of his relationship with the boy “Even May sees it. And I think that being there for Peter has been good for you.”

Tony sighed “He stresses me out too much, he is the reason I have all these grey hairs”

“Well, now you know what it feels like” She said with a smile

Tony loved Pepper, she was always there for him no matter what he did and she always supported him. Sure, he had Rhodey and Happy and the team but he wasn’t good at talking about feelings and emotions, and he was sure she wouldn’t tease him about it. So having her there talking about Peter, he felt like he could finally talk to someone about him without being awkward.

“Maybe I do see him as my kid” He said in a low voice, but Pepper heard him anyway and she kept smiling.

“Good. I’m glad you admitted it. Because I think he sees you as his father”

“What? Peter doesn’t-“ 

“Tony, for a genius, you really are stupid sometimes”

He shut up at that, not really knowing what to say. Of course he cared about Peter but he didn’t want to admit that he felt parental towards the kid. That in the short amount of time of them knowing each other, the kid had managed to crawl his way to Tony’s heart and there was nothing he wouldn’t do for him. He wanted to keep him safe. But did Peter feel the same way? The kid had already lost his parents and his uncle and he had a lovely aunt that had been there for him all this time. He knew the kid admired him. Looked up to him. But to see him as a father? That was a bit too much. He didn’t deserve the kid. He was such a good and-

“What was that?” He heard Pepper ask, taking him back to the present and away from his thoughts.

“Uh?” He looked at the new notification and the blinking light on one of the screens. The ‘Baby Monitor Protocol’ letting him know that Peter was in the suit. “Oh that is Peter’s suit. He was at his friend’s house to build Legos or something, he was going to eat dinner with them and then go on patrol until 9pm.”

“You seem strangely calm about him being out as Spiderman.” She said looking at him with a frown and then with a look of understanding. “So you are monitoring him?”

“Uh, yeah?”

She gave him a look and then just laughed “Okay, just don’t over-do it. Give him his privacy.”

“Yeah, I know, I know”

“Actually, you should come to have dinner with me while we wait for him”

“You are just taking your chance to get me out of here, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Now let’s go. You have been here long enough. And something tells me that when Peter arrives, you will drag him here with you all night. So come on”

 

\-------------------▫

 

Peter arrived just before his curfew at the tower. Patrol had been fine, except for that feeling that someone was watching him. He knew he should tell Tony. But he didn’t want the man to freak out. And he would probably tell May, who would also freak out. He grabbed a snack from the kitchen when he arrived and said hi to Pepper who was in the living room reading something, then headed towards the lab to talk with Tony. He didn’t know how to start. He didn’t want to make a big deal out of this. It was just a feeling, maybe it was nothing, but maybe it was important. 

He arrived at the lab and FRIDAY let him in. He saw Tony working on something he had never seen before and approached the man. “Hey Pete. FRI didn’t tell me you arrived. I was just about to call you”

“Yeah I’m here. I came in the window of the common room. Said hi to Pepper first. What are you working on?”

“This, kid, is a new suit I’m working on for you. Come see”

“What? You are building me a new suit? But- why? I mean, not to be ungrateful, Mr. Stark but I already have one, and it’s really cool and I don’t really need-“

“Kid, shut up. First off, call me Tony. The ‘Mr. Stark’ feels weird now, I feel old and you are basically living here. Second, this is nano tech, better than spandex so it will keep you safer. I know you have the suit we worked on together and now, with this one, you’ll just have another and it will help with my stress levels.”

“Wow, it looks awesome Mr. Sta-“ Tony raised an eyebrow at him “I mean, uh Tony?” 

“That’s better. Yes Pete?”

“Thank you”

“You are welcome.” He said with a smile. “Want to come and help?”

“Yeah!”

They were working on the suit for a while when Tony noticed Peter playing with the keychain on his hands again, so it was clear the kid had something on his mind and was nervous about it. It had become easy to read the kid’s expressions and to tell when the kid wanted to say something. 

When he saw the keychain again, for a moment he thought he remembered when he had seen it, that feeling of familiarity, like a distant memory. A woman using it as a necklace and him taking it off her neck but it was blurry and remote, like he couldn’t really tell from where it was. So he just shook it off and asked Peter “Okay kid, what’s on your mind?”

“Uh? What- em what do you mean Mr. Sta… I mean Tony?”

“You usually play with that when you are nervous and want to say something, so, what is it?”

Peter looked down at his hands holding the keychain, as if he didn’t realize he was holding it but looked at Tony before answering “I… uh, it’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing Pete, if it was you worried like that”

“It’s just… you remember my Spidey sense? The one that I get every time before something bad happens or when there is danger around?”

“Yeah” Tony answered not liking where this was going

“It has been pretty constant lately, like a tingle on the back of my neck, warning me about something but when i turn around to look for whatever it is, it’s nothing. Like I’m running from my own shadow. It’s a weird feeling. It’s almost as if someone might be watching me”

“Or like someone’s been following you”

Peter nodded “Yeah, and it’s just a feeling, you know, it might not be important. I could be imagining it, with everything that is going on. I didn’t want to freak you out but I thought I should tell you.”

“Yes, thank you Peter, for telling me. Listen kid I don’t like this. Maybe it could be a warning, your senses have barely failed you before. HYDRA knows your face and they know you are Spiderman and by the amount of time you spend with me, well, it wouldn’t be hard to put the pieces together. If they are keeping an eye on you, they could try to do something”

“But, could they even do something? I mean, you destroyed their base and there are not that many of them left, right?

“That’s true but I don’t really want to risk it kid.”

“But I can take care of myself and I’m wearing the watch you gave me, like all the time. If I were in trouble, I would let you know.”

“I know kid, just be careful, okay? And if you see anything suspicious at all, I want you to tell me, I don’t care how small you think it is”

“Okay. I will. Also I wanted to let you know I have this ‘Holiday Decathlon Meeting’ thing”

Tony frowned at the change of topic “The what now?”

“Yeah, I don’t even know for sure what it is and I had completely forgot about it. Apparently, MJ –she is our decathlon captain- she registered the team for it. It’s next Thursday. I already called May about it and she’ll be there with me”

“And what exactly is this thing? Is it a competition? Because I thought you were on vacation”

“I thought that too but it’s not mandatory and it’s not really a competition. It’s like a friendly tournament between decathlon teams, to prepare for next year”

“On December? While on vacation? Is that a real thing? Who would willingly want to do that?”

Peter just shrugged, he was not the one who had chosen to do it but if it meant more time out of the tower and with Ned and MJ, he would take it. Besides, it was good practice.

“If you want to go, you can go. It’s fine with me. So you already talked to May about it?”

“Yeah, she tries to go to my decathlon competitions when she can, and even if this one doesn’t count as a competition, well, she wants to be there”

“Okay kid, just be careful, remember what we talked about, you see trouble, you call me”

 

\-------------------▫

 

“Are you completely sure that’s him?” Frank asked the agents he chose to find Spiderman’s identity. There were barely 50 of their men that survived the explosion and managed to hide, and now they were only waiting for the right time. 

“We are sure Frank. We followed this kid around. Every time he disappears into an ally, Spiderman comes out. We have seen him get in and out of the Avengers Tower. We looked into him and he studies at this high school called Midtown High. He is one of the smartest students there. He could be Stark’s kid”

Frank was looking at a picture of Spiderman, but now he had a name. Peter Parker. He wasn’t using his father’s name, probably to keep their secret. They had everyone else fooled. But now HYDRA knew the truth. And they would use it against them.

“What else do you got for me?”

“Stark has him under constant surveillance. Maybe a tracker on his phone and suit. He has a friend called Ned Leeds and an aunt May Parker. He is also on his decathlon team, which we investigated and we heard has a little meeting next Thursday”

“Is Stark going to be there?” Frank asked them

“I don’t know. So far, they have never been seen together on public places, so probably not” One of his men answered.

“They are probably trying to keep the secret of their relationship. They don’t want the world to know Stark has a kid, and that he is Spiderman. We can use that to take him sir, it’s a good opportunity”

“We need to take him. Use him against Stark. Without Viktor we can’t replicate more alien weapons and we can’t use the kid to create a serum. We are going to have to use him as leverage against the Avengers.” Frank said

“But how are we going to? He must be well protected by the Avengers, not to add he is almost an Avenger himself” 

“We need to catch them off guard. We have enough weapons for a small attack. A distraction won’t work this time. They won’t fall for that again. We need a real threat. They are expecting us to do something, they just don’t know when.” Frank smiled as a plan started to form on his mind “That competition you talked about, is it crowded?” 

“I would guess. There are several schools going there to participate.”

“This is the plan: We will plant two bombs.“ Frank started to share what he had on his mind “One somewhere opposite that competition, far away, to keep the Avengers distracted with it. Let them know it’s from us and they will go deal with it. Keep them away.” He smiled as he told the rest of his plan “But the real fun will be somewhere else, we will plant a smaller bomb as the distraction at the competition, we time it with the end of the thing, when everything is crowded and a mess, the panic of the bomb will have everyone running, the sea of people making it difficult to tell what is happening, and we take the kid. We use the enhanced tranquilizer, several doses, I don’t want the chance of him waking up and ruining everything again”

“And if the Avengers show up?”

“They won’t. They will be busy with the threat of a bomb somewhere else and once we get the boy, we will be ready to keep him captive this time. We’ll ask Stark our demands in exchange for the boy but we’ll get to keep him for a while. We will use him until we get the resources we need. After all, this is Stark’s heir we are talking about.” He addressed one of the agents that worked with the hacking “Can you make sure they won’t find us?”

“Yes sir. I’ve been using the alien tech we managed to save from the explosion to hide from them and they haven’t been able to get past it. Once we get the boy, they won’t find him. We can go off the radar”

“Good. We have a mission to prepare. Plant the bombs, one on the place of the competition and another one somewhere far away and make sure the Avengers know it’s from us. Get the weapons and the men ready to take Spiderman. I want everything ready for next Thursday. This time, we won’t fail”

 

\-------------------▫

 

It had been a week since Peter told him about that feeling of someone following him. The kid stayed mostly at the tower but whenever he left to do whatever it is he did outside as Peter Parker, he had Happy following him. Is not that the kid wasn’t capable, after all, he was Spiderman. He had been training with Natasha and the team. He had a watch to alert all the Avengers if something happened to him. 

Happy was just an extra precaution. He needed Peter to be safe and if HYDRA was after him, it was better to have someone keeping an eye on him. FRIDAY did that at the tower and now Happy did it whenever he went outside, even if the man was not, well, happy about following a teenager around. Hopefully the kid wouldn’t notice for a while, and if he did, he could only hope the kid would understand that Tony was doing it for his safety. 

Today was Peter’s Decathlon competition thing that was not officially a competition but whatever. May was there with the kid. And he might have sent Happy there too to keep an eye on things. Just in case. Rhodey and him where following a few leads without much success which was really frustrating. 

He kept thinking about Peter, thinking about if he should have gone to that competition along with May to support the kid, but maybe Peter wouldn’t appreciate the attention that Tony Stark being in one of these things might attract. So he let it be and expected updates from Happy. 

He was still working on his lab, finishing some web combinations for the kid and upgrading protocols on his suit when Natasha got in the lab and asked “Is Peter here?”

“Hello to you too Nat. How have you been? I’ve been great, thanks for asking”

“Now is not the time Tony. I have something to tell you”

With the serious tone in her voice he could tell this was important “Why do you ask about Peter, is something wrong with him?”

“There is nothing wrong _with_ him.” She answered “This is _about_ him. And you.”

“He is not here, but what is it? You are starting to worry me”

She sighed and looked at him. “You know how I’ve been decoding the files from HYDRA and that I had found, well, mostly nothing important on them”

“Yeah, so…”

“So there were only a couple of files left, I didn’t think there was anything important on them, so I kept postponing having to decrypt them”

“Okaaaaay, so you took your time. What is your point Nat?"

“I did find something. On the final files. Most of it was coded like the rest but… in the facility they were keeping Peter in, they took his blood and analyzed it. We destroyed everything inside but I hacked into it and Tony, what I am about to tell you, you are not going to believe it. Maybe HYDRA put it there as a trick but I had to tell you because maybe it is true, considering they took Peter’s blood when he was with them.”

“You are rambling Nat, just tell me”

“Tony, don’t freak out but, I found DNA tests. And they say that Peter is your son. As in, your _biological_ son”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeaaah that happened... Tony knoows. Let me know what you think :)  
> There is only one more chapter left! i'll try to update tomorrow or the day after. I have most of the chapter written but it's not done yet and i have some editing to do so maybe it could take longer.  
> And thank you for your comments and kudos!
> 
> Edit: Hii, don't hate me but i got caught up on Father's day and i didn't finish the chapter, i'm sorry! I'll post it sometime this week though so just wait for it :)


	10. The truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “They had a DNA test performed on his blood. An analysis of it. Everything else on it was true. I compared it. Besides if it was a lie, why would they bother to encrypt it and hide it?” She stayed silent before adding “Also, i think you and Peter look alike and with your past, it’s not like it’s impossible.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Sorry for the long wait again but i've been busy and i didn't really finish the whole chapter. I rewrote some of it and now i have like half of it ready and that is what i'm posting. I was going to wait to have the entire chapter written and finished but i felt like i could post this and then complete what is missing later just so you can read a little bit of what is coming :)

“Tony, don’t freak out but, I found DNA tests. And they say that Peter is your son. As in, your _biological_ son”

You know that thing on hospitals, on a heart monitor when someone’s heart gets into asystole and on the screen appears the flat line showing it stopped beating? Tony felt like that in that moment. 

_“What?”_

His mind was entirely blank. He didn’t know how to process what Natasha was telling him. He just stared at her with his jaw open. Probably with a look of confusion and shook that would have been funny in any other situation. 

Natasha was still talking to him but he wasn’t sure what she was saying. He was just repeating her previous words. _Your biological son._

How was that even possible? Peter. Peter was his kid. Peter Parker is his biological son. Spiderman. He was his son? They were father and son. Maybe, if he keeps repeating it, it will make sense to him. Because there is just no way someone as good as Peter could have possibly come out of someone like him. 

Someone was shaking him and pinching his arm. He notices he is seating down now and Natasha is standing next to him, looking at him with raised eyebrows and a hand on his shoulder.

“You back with us?”

“Yeah, uh, I just started to-”

“Panic? Overthink it?”

“Something like that”

They stayed in silence for a couple of minutes, just looking at each other. Nat was probably just giving him time to process this new information and wrap his head around it. 

“How do you know it’s real?” He finally asked “Because if it’s a trick, then I just almost had a panic attack over nothing”

“They had a DNA test performed on his blood. An analysis of it. Everything else on it was true. I compared it. Besides if it was a lie, why would they bother to encrypt it and hide it?” She stayed silent before adding “Also, i think you and Peter look alike and with your past, it’s not like it’s impossible.”

Tony stayed quiet thinking about it “I guess you are right”

“But we could find out for sure”

“What?”

“Do a paternity test. Compare your DNA to Peter’s. Make sure HYDRA wasn’t lying”. She raised her eyebrows at him “With all the helicopter parenting you already do, you can’t tell me you don’t have a sample of his blood around”

He wanted to tell her he was not _that_ obsessed with Peter’s health to have samples of his DNA lying around on the tower but that would be a lie. He did have a few samples around, mostly to work on medicine for the kid. He never would have thought he would be using it to compare it to his own. He stood up and asked FRIDAY to perform the procedure with the samples from both his DNA and Peter’s.

“How long do I have to wait for the results FRI?”

“It’s going to take from 15 to 20 minutes, boss”

“Okay, okay. I have time.” He said trying to calm himself “Call Rhodey and Pepper here”

 

\-------------------▫

 

Peter was glad he decided to go to the competition. Well, it wasn’t technically a competition but still. He got to get out of the tower, practice a little his decathlon skills, see his friends without Flash because apparently –and thankfully- he was somewhere else on vacation and May was around to support him. After all the craziness and drama from HYDRA, it was good to still have activities that resembled a normal life. Or as normal as it could be for him. 

He had been practicing with his team since that morning. Or at least the ones that had come. Which was most of them minus Flash and a couple of other students. They really didn’t’ have much to do so they met up and practiced all morning, then went to have lunch together and now they were in the auditorium of their own school. It was revealed that the competition would be held at Midtown so they were representing it. 

They were against several other STEM schools which were also really good so once the competition started, it was harder than he had expected to beat them. After almost an hour of going through the questions and eliminating the other schools, it was just the final 3 schools competing for the first place.

They had a bit of a break of 10 minutes before going to the final rounds, so MJ gave them a bit of a pep talk, in her own, weird way. He thought of calling Tony, to tell him how everything was going and how close they were to winning but he thought better of it. He was probably busy and he could always call him after, to tell him the final results. 

They all got into position and as he sits on his chair on the stage next to Ned and MJ, his eyes land on a familiar face that is not May. He rolls his eyes as he sees Happy seating on the bleachers. He is relatively close to May but not exactly next to her. He is probably there to keep an eye on him and May. Courtesy of Tony. Apparently it wasn’t enough that he had literal superpowers himself and a watch that would alert the Avengers if he was in trouble. Now he had a babysitter. Great. He locks eyes with the man and he just shrugs, with a -Tony sent me, what can you do about it- look. He’ll have to learn to live with it. 

There would be a couple of rounds to filter the 2 finalist and then the ‘sudden death’ question before announcing the winner. Just as they are about to start the next session, he looks for May in the crowd and sees her, cheering him from the distance and he smiles at her. He is ready. 

 

\-------------------▫

 

After exactly 16 minutes and 27 seconds FRIDAY tells him the results are ready. Rhodey and Pepper arrived a couple of minutes before but Tony hasn’t really explained them what is going on or why they were called to Tony’s lab. He just stays silent, he is too nervous about what the results are going to say and he doesn’t really know what to do or how to explain everything to them. Luckily, Natasha seems to understand this so before they can ask what FRIDAY means, she reveals what she found on the files and the paternity test they are currently performing. 

He waits for their reaction and it’s not really what he was expecting. They are both looking at him like the entire thing is just absurd. He even saw Rhodey rolling his eyes at him. He frowns at their response and speaks before they can “Why don’t you look surprised? Or in shook? I definitely had a more interesting reaction that yours. Something close to panic actually”

Pepper is the one who talks first “Tony, why would you panic? There is no need for that.” She steps closer to him to take his hand. “Listen to me, you are already Peter’s dad somewhat. You have been spending time with him, you protect him and you care about him. A paternity test is not going to change that. Your relationship with him is one of the best things that has happened to you both and I’m glad you found someone like him to look after. Whatever FRIDAY tells you about that test, it’s not going to be a tragedy, okay?” she tells him calmly and softly while Rhodey just gives him an encouraging smile.

“Okay” He sighs “You are right. I’m ready.” He holds Pepper’s hand on his. “FRI? Tell me the results” 

“Yes boss. There is a 99.98% match between your DNA with Peter’s. This probability highly suggest that you might be Peter’s biological father.” 

Tony is Peter’s dad. 

Peter is Tony’s kid. 

“Tony?” Rhodey asks “What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know.” He answers honestly. He already sees Peter as his kid. He already admitted that to Pepper, not so long ago. But Peter being his actual biological son? That is just too much. Not because he wouldn’t want him to be his kid. Peter is the best kid and the most well behaved teenager that he knows. He is a superhero! He spends his free time helping and saving people. No, he can’t believe Peter is his son because that would mean he failed him. He hadn’t known. He hadn’t been there for him. 

“I wasn’t there” He whispers

“What?” Pepper asks gently

“I didn’t know. All this time. I wasn’t there for him. He grew up without parents. I… I wanted to be better than Howard but I just left my kid to grow up without me. I missed everything.”

“Tony, it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know, you can’t blame yourself” Pepper answers. 

That is when he starts to think how all of this is even possible. How did this happen in the first place. Sure, now they know Tony is Peter’s father but then, who was Peter’s mother? Why didn’t she tell him about Peter? Was he adopted and never knew? There were a lot of questions and not many answers but he could find out. 

“I need time to think”

“Tony, I’m not sure if you should-“ Pepper starts to tell him but he interrupts her

“No Pep. I need answers.” He says as he holds her hand. “Thank you all for your support and everything but right now, I need this to make sense. This is about me and Peter.”

“Okay, but we will talk about this later” And they all turn to leave the lab. Before he leaves, Rhodey stops at the door and says with a smile “You know what? Uncle Rhodey does have a nice ring to it” and leaves. That actually makes Tony laugh. Who would have thought? He was a dad. And Peter was his son. But how? When he is sure he is by himself he asks “FRIDAY?”

“Yes boss?”

“Show me Peter’s file. Who is his mother?”

In the screens appears to be everything about Peter’s parents. The Parkers. Richard and Mary. About their lives. Their work. And their deaths on the plane crash. He sees Mary’s photograph but he doesn’t really recognize her. “FRI, show me more pictures of her.” Most of them were with Richard, probably after they got married so she looked a bit different. But when FRIDAY showed him a couple of pictures of a younger Mary, he couldn’t stop staring at her. Not because he knew for sure who she was or that he immediately recognized her. No. It was because the necklace around her neck. 

It was exactly the same atom from Peter’s keychain. She didn’t have them in all the pictures, it was mostly in the ones where she looked younger. But what surprised him is that while looking at it around her neck, he seemed to remember where he had seen it. Why when he saw it on Peter’s hand it looked familiar to him. Why he had that weird flashback he had ignored a few weeks ago, that distant memory of a woman using that necklace and him taking it off her neck, whispering things in her ear. It was blurry when he thought about it but now he was sure that was Mary Parker. 

He saw her background story on the screens FRIDAY was showing him. He had met her as Mary Fitzpatrick at some conference, probably slept together at some point –hence Peter- and never really knew anything about her after their night together. 

He can’t believe it. He slept with Peter’s mother all those years ago and he didn’t even know it. Well, he didn’t even remember it. How is he going to tell Peter? –Hey kid, I just found out I am your biological father- No. It was going to be a hell of a conversation. He should talk to May first, yes, that was a good idea. But did she know Peter was not biologically Richard’s? He had no clue, but before telling Peter, he needed to calm his panic with Pepper and clear things with May. 

Before he could really start to think what he was going to do next, Natasha came through the lab doors with a worried look on her face. “Tony, I know this is not the best time for you but I wanted to talk to you about something. It’s important.” She starts.

“Great” He pinches the bridge of his nose. Perfect timing. “Now what Nat?”

“I just got a call from Steve. He got information about a HYDRA bomb somewhere in the city. He, Sam and the others are already on their way to find it and deal with it”

“Wait, are you sure it’s HYDRA?” He frowns. “And if Steve is already dealing with it, then why are we worried, they don’t need all of us to deal with a bomb threat”

“I know Steve can handle it but, it doesn’t feel right, I mean, I was thinking and even though it’s nothing more than a theory, this is the first time we hear about HYDRA in a while and it doesn’t make sense if it’s just a bomb. I think there is more behind it.”

“Like what?”

She raises her eyebrows at him, waiting for him to realize what it is. The rest of the Avengers are on a bomb threat from HYDRA somewhere different which is weird. What would HYDRA win from that? He thought they wanted Peter and- _Oh shit._

His eyes are wide open as he realizes. HYDRA knows Peter is his kid. They are the first ones who found out actually. If they try to do something, this might be it. Whatever their plan is.

“Peter” He says and Natasha nods “What do you think they are going to do?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong and it’s nothing. They know they lost. They barely have any competent men left so they are at disadvantage. But if they do try something, it would be against Peter, an attempt to get ahead of us. They know he is your son. He is valuable.”

His heart does a funny thing when he hears Natasha refering to Peter as his son, but before he can know exactly what the feeling is, he brushes it away. There are other important things happening right now. Like HYDRA trying to take away his kid again. “But they tried to take him before and couldn’t hold him. Peter escaped. By himself. So why would they even try? They know he can fight them”

“They are desperate. They probably want something in exchange for Peter. Or they just want to take him for revenge on him and on us. I don’t know. But now they will be prepared. Last time, they weren’t ready to hold Spiderman. Now that they know what he is capable of, they will definitely have a contingency plan.”

“So a distraction, again?”

“That bomb threat is real. A bomb squad are the ones who told Steve it was from HYDRA. Maybe it’s to confuse us. If they try something with Peter it would be at some moment or place when it’s guaranteed you won’t be with him. It could be in either a very isolated place to have no witnesses or a very crowded place where no one would even notice. There are a lot of possibilities. Where is he right now?”

“The competition!” He exclaims as he starts calling either Peter or Happy “He had a decathlon competition or something like that. And he doesn’t have his suit! Call Steve and tell him what is really going on and then you and Rhodey meet me at Peter’s school in Queens, as fast as you can”

He doesn’t wait for her answer. He is now in a suit flying towards Peter. He doesn’t even know for sure if HYDRA will try something against Peter but he needs to get to him, just in case. He tries calling the kid –his kid- but Peter doesn’t answer. He probably doesn’t even have his phone on him so he calls Happy instead. 

He answers on the third ring sounding annoyed “You just had to call now. They just announced the winner and it was actually thanks to Peter that his school won. I was going to call you later to let you know-“

“Happy, shut it. There is a possible HYDRA mission going on right now to take the kid so keep an eye on him. I’m on my way, do NOT let him out of your sight, try to get him and May out of there, do you understand me?”

“Tony? I have my eyes on him. What is going-…” As the sound of an explosion on the background cuts the phone call. 

“Happy? Happy? Answer me! Damn it!” He is in full panic now. Whatever HYDRA was planning, they just started it. “FRIDAY how long until I reach Peter?”

“6 minutes and 21 seconds boss”

“I need to be there now. I don’t have time for this. Put all the energy on the thrusters and take me to my kid fast”

Seconds later, the alarm from Peter’s watch goes off.

 

\-------------------▫

 

After the elimination round, Midtown is one of the finalists preparing for the ‘sudden death’ question. It was one single question and any member of any team could answer it. If you got it right, your team wins. If you get it wrong and then the other teams gets it right. They win. It was a lot of pressure and even though all of them had been in competitions like that before, it never stopped being stressful.

The final question was made by their moderator: “What is the ‘Photoelectric effect’?”

There was silence in the room and suddenly the sound of a bell from one of the students in Midtown High. They all look at the owner of the bell and see Peter Parker with a determined look as he is about to answer the question. He takes a deep breath before saying “It is the emission of electrons from the surface of a material when it is illuminated with light of certain frequencies” 

The moderator is stalling for a couple of seconds before announcing “That is correct! Midtown High wins!”

They all run for a group hug and his friends congratulate him. From the corner of his eye he can see May waving at him with a big smile on her face. He even sees Happy with a proud little smile from where he is seating. Once the initial excitement passes, they are all guided to the front of the stage to properly announce the winner and probably give them plastic medals or something. 

When he looks at the crowd he starts feeling his Spidey sense going off. Something is about to happen. He can’t see what it is but his eyes start looking for May. She is fine, filming Peter with her phone as if nothing is wrong. He gives her a small wave to conceal how worried he actually is. Aunt May is here, so are Happy and his friends. The tingling in the back of his neck isn’t stopping. He feels the watch Tony gave him and considers pressing the button but he isn’t sure. There is nothing going on. Maybe it’s a false alarm. 

Then, he sees Happy talking on the phone with someone looking annoyed and confused, when quickly, the man’s eyes land on Peter with a worried look. 

Whatever is going to happen, cannot be good. He is about to turn to Ned to warn him when there is the sound of an explosion close by. Smoke and debris falling near the door. Everyone screams as they start to run towards the exit.

Peter takes Ned and MJ’s hand and tells them to look for their parents and get out of there. He sees out of the corner of his eye a couple of men dressed in black running in his direction. He presses the button on the watch Tony gave him for emergencies and runs towards May. 

When he gets to her, he gives her a quick hug while Happy joins them “Tony just called. HYDRA is-“ He is interrupted by the two men from before trying to take Peter away. May screams but Happy punches one of them while Peter fights the other one. When they are sure there are no more men around Happy tells him “They are here for you kid. There are probably more of them coming. Tony is on his way but we need to get out and keep you safe”

HYDRA is here for him. His presence put all this people and his friends in danger. They start running to the exit too but he feels like he is being watched. That feeling of someone following him he told Tony about. Whatever they have planned, it’s against him and if he keeps running with Happy and May, he will put them in danger too. 

Happy said that Tony is on his way so he just needs to stall them a little, by himself, away from May and Happy. So as they approach the exit he abruptly turns around and tells Happy “Keep her safe. I’ll keep them away from you. I’ll be fine. Don't worry about me.” He holds May’s hand for a second and without any warning, he starts running to the opposite direction.

He hears May calling his name and sees Happy trying to go after him, but with the amount of people and his enhanced skills, he loses them pretty quickly. As long as they are safe, he can deal with anything. 

He hears loud footsteps following him and his Spidey sense going crazy so he assumes is HYDRA after him. He finally sees a dozen HYDRA agents running towards him. He starts fighting the men, keeping in mind all the time he spent training with Steve and Natasha, learning how to avoid punches and control his strength. 

He manages to beat all of them but sees more of them coming and they have the tranquilizer gun. And something tells him they won’t make the same mistake again of leaving him awake. This time, they will make sure he is unconscious. 

He keeps fighting some of the agents, avoiding the darts with the tranquilizer thanks to his Spidey sense and starts running and climbing towards the rooftop, where he knows less people will be caught in this mess and where Tony will have a better chance at finding him. He just hopes he gets there in time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So like i said, i still haven't finished the whole thing, there are still a lot of things unanswered and i'm currently working on it. I’ll post what is missing on Sunday. I don't know if i'll just add another chapter or just add whatever is missing in this one but i promise i will finish it! Thank you for reading and i hope you enjoyed the story :)


	11. What comes next?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He repeats the words of the man in his head. Did he just imply that Tony Stark was his father? That was just ridiculous. And impossible. Maybe he just wanted to mislead them. But Mr. Stark didn’t look surprised, or annoyed. Actually he seemed to know exactly what that man was talking about, Peter seems to be the only one who doesn’t know what it is so he asks “What is he talking about? Why did he say that?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES finally the concluding part!! Thank you for taking the time to read this story, thank you for your comments and kudos, they motivate me a lot to write :) enjoy the last chapter! <3000

After getting the alarm from Peter’s watch, Tony is close to having a heart attack. It must be really bad if Peter decided to press that button. He usually tries to make the best out of a bad situation and he doesn’t always ask for help when he needs it so if whatever its happening made him press the button on his watch, then it must be bad. 

He arrives in the middle of the chaos and people running desperately outside the building. Whatever is wrong is happening inside. There is a part of the school that looks completely destroyed, probably from the explosion he heard when he called Happy. It must have been to make people leave the place and for HYDRA to have an uncomplicated way to take Peter away. But nope. That won’t be happening. He would make sure of that. They won’t touch Peter. 

He tracks Peter’s watch inside the building where he knows the competition was happening and flies towards it. On his way, he finds a bunch of HYDRA agents, identifying them for their symbol and black clothes. He aims his thrusters at them and fights them until there is no one left. Once they are all down, he recognizes in their weapons the tranquilizer darts from the footage of the compound. They were definitely here for Peter and this time, they had come prepared to take on an enhanced individual. 

“Tony? We are here.” He hears Natasha say on the coms. “Rhodey is taking care of the HYDRA agents around the place, but there are not that many left. I think they were mostly inside. And I just found a couple of their vehicles. They were definitely planning on taking Peter with everything that’s in here. We were just in time. Have you found Peter?”

Back up is here so now he can focus on finding Peter. “I’m still working on it, I’m following his watch tracker. Did you talk to Steve?”

“They are still working on the other bomb, but as soon as they finish, they’ll be on their way here, we all received the warning from Peter’s watch”

He flew where people were still running away from the auditorium and where Peter’s watch said he had been a couple of minutes ago. But now he wasn’t there. Instead, he saw a stressed looking Happy Hogan and an anxious looking May Parker. But no Peter. He approached them on the suit. “Are you okay? Where is Peter? His tracker said he was here a couple of minutes ago!”

“Tony, I’m sorry, he was here with us and I tried to make him stay but he started running to the other direction and I couldn’t stop him. He told me to keep May safe and-“

Peter probably did it to keep them safe. He didn’t have time for this. He needed to find Peter before whatever is left of HYDRA did it first, so with a serious voice he ordered “Happy, take May outside and keep her safe. Rhodey and Nat are somewhere out there. Stay out of danger, okay? I’ll go find Peter” 

Peter didn’t have his suit or his phone but fortunately he did have the watch and he could track his kid with it. “FRI, give me a location on Peter”

“Boss, he appears to have climbed a wall and is now on the rooftop. Several HYDRA agents appear to be after him.” He follows the path FRIDAY told him and finds several men with guns unconscious on the floor. Must be Peter’s doing. So he blasts through a window and goes after his kid. 

 

\-------------------▫

 

Peter arrives to the rooftop and out of the corner of his eye, he sees a small jet landing near his school, Black Widow and War Machine walking out of it. So help is here, great. But where is Mr. Stark? Maybe he had gotten there earlier. 

There were several men following him. They obviously couldn’t climb like him but he could hear them rushing on the stairs. He didn’t have his web shooters so he couldn’t just swing away. So when the men arrived he was ready to fight them. He had taken most of them out anyway. 

He avoids being punched and getting shot by the darts. They probably have an improved version of the sedative and if not, they’ll probably hit him with way more than one to make sure he is knocked out. But the problem is that he is outnumbered and he doesn’t really have a plan, so while he struggles to fight the men around him, he is sure there is someone behind him aiming something at him. His Spidey sense is telling him to move but he can’t while being in the middle of the fight.

Just as he deals with the last man, he turns around and finds that Frank guy, the one who took him from the compound. He has two different weapons on his hands. One is a weird looking gun, similar to the ones the Vulture had, it was sort of glowing, so it probably was alien tech. The other one was the gun with the tranquilizer but it looked empty, as if he had just used it. _Oh shit._

He looks at his arm and takes out the little dart from it. He didn’t notice, but in the middle of his fight with the others, Frank must have shoot it at him. That is what his Spidey sense was warning him about. He feels dizzy and sleepy like the first time they used it on him but he is not falling unconscious, so that is good. 

He looks at this Frank guy. He doesn’t really know what he is planning but he needs to buy some time so Tony can find him “Stop. Whatever you want to do. You won’t win”

“How are you so sure about that?” Frank replies while holding the glowing alien gun and dropping the other one, slowly approaching Peter “I don’t have that many men left but I still can take you out with this.” He says pointing at the gun. “You are my way to get money for HYDRA. Your father will make sure of that.” He says, aiming the weird looking alien weapon towards him. 

Peter is confused. Not only because the sedative they used is a little bit stronger than the other one but also, did he mention his father? Richard had been dead since he was 6 years old. And sure, they weren’t exactly poor but they weren’t rich either, so they couldn’t pay him or anything. So why would he mention him? 

His body is trying to metabolize whatever sedative they used. He needed to fight this guy. But his head was spinning a little. He was struggling to stand up straight and try to fight back without being on the way of the gun. He wasn’t sure what he should do, that is, until he can clearly hear the sound of thrusters coming his way. So Peter just stares at the man, knowing Iron Man is coming. 

 

\-------------------▫

 

Tony arrives at the rooftop and sees a bunch of fallen HYDRA agents on the floor surrounding Peter. And then he sees that there is still one single man aiming a weird looking weapon at Peter. He immediately lands on the roof, aiming his thruster against the guy, standing between the gun and Peter, blocking him, so the gun is aimed at him.

“You can drop it now. Your plan failed. Your men are down. You are not taking Peter and you are not getting anything you want. So lower that thing and I’ll reconsider making your death quick and painless.” Tony arrives just in time, dropping his faceplate off to show his angry looking face. Peter releases a sigh of relieve. 

Frank looks angry, probably whatever he had in mind was just ruined by Iron Man’s presence but he seemed to control it before speaking “I don’t think so. This is a new weapon designed by Viktor, the man you killed, with an alien core. It releases a powerful blast of alien energy. Not even your armor could protect you from it. It only has one shot though, so now I have to decide whether I want to use it on the father or the son”

There it is again, Peter thinks. Father and son? Tony gives him a look he can’t decipher at all. That leaves Peter even more confused. With a frown, he stands up next to the Iron Man armor. Next to Tony. If this guy is going to fire that gun, he won’t let Mr. Stark be the one to take the shot. It already happened with Uncle Ben and he wouldn’t let it happen again. 

He repeats the words of the man in his head. Did he just imply that Tony Stark was his father? That was just ridiculous. And impossible. Maybe he just wanted to mislead them. But Mr. Stark didn’t look surprised, or annoyed. Actually he seemed to know exactly what that man was talking about, Peter seems to be the only one who doesn’t know what it is so he asks “What is he talking about? Why did he say that?”

Tony looks at him with a guilty look on his face, but without lowering his thruster aimed at the man “Peter, I… this is not how I wanted to tell you and I just found out too, not that long ago-“

”Wait, _WHAT?”_ He interrupts him “You are telling me that is true? How…? And when did you...? WHAT?”

“You didn’t know?” Frank starts talking with a forced laugh “After all of this, and you didn’t know he was your father? Wow. Stark with a secret son. But even he didn’t know about it. Well, now you know the big news. But it doesn’t matter. You ruined me. And now, you will pay for it” 

“Okay, just stop…” Tony starts talking while Frank fires the gun, aiming it at Peter. With his Spidey sense, he feels the blast coming his way but he also sees Tony trying to move towards him to get in the way of it. Even with his Iron Man armor, he can tell it would hurt him. He can’t lose anyone else. So without even thinking, he jumps in front of Tony before he can get shot and takes the burst of the blast. He hears Tony screaming his name and firing his own thrusters at Frank before kneeling next to him. 

“Peter? Hey kid, stay with me. Everything is going to be okay, alright. Just hang on.”

“Tony?”

“Yeah Pete? I’m here”

“I’m sl’py.”

“Hey Pete, no. Don’t close your eyes, keep them open”

“Sorry… I’m t’red”

The last thing he hears is Tony’s voice repeating his name as he slowly closes his eyes. 

 

\-------------------▫

 

The rest of the Avengers had showed up some minutes after Peter was hit with that thing and while Tony took him to the tower, the rest of them were picking up the fallen HYDRA agents. Steve and Sam were supervising their transport to a secure facility where they would be detained and dealt with. Natasha had found their van with maps and locations so she and Wanda decided to visit them all and destroy them. Rhodey stayed at the tower to deal with all the boring paperwork.

May had arrived with Happy and the first thing she did was ask for Peter. She and Tony hadn’t really left his side since he entered the Med Bay and was treated by Helen Cho. Peter was still unconscious. He had been since he arrived and for the entire following night. The doctors weren’t even sure what he had. There was seemingly nothing wrong with him. He wasn’t bleeding. He wasn’t in pain. He just appeared to be sleeping. Like all that energy blast did was knock him out. What they didn’t know was for how long. 

After the first night of Peter not showing signs of waking up, he decided he should give the kid a little time to rest, he was worried and just wanted Peter to open his eyes, but if the exams and scans they did on him said nothing was wrong, then he shouldn’t be so concerned. 

Peter had heard the man refer to them as father and son. He had asked him about it and Tony told him the truth. It was not how he wanted Peter to find out but it was out of his hands, he couldn’t have imagined the guy was going to just casually say it like that, but Peter hadn’t really had the time to react to the news, since 5 seconds later he was being shot at by an alien weapon. Seriously, that kid needed to catch a break. 

For now, Tony should be focusing on telling May the new information he found about him and Peter, ask her what she thinks and what she knows. He is a little nervous about her reaction, after all, she is the one who raised Peter, the one who was there for him and who made him the person he is today. He knows May is important for Peter, so whatever May thinks and says, is important for him. So the next day, when they are seating together in Peter’s room, he finally has the courage to talk to her about it. 

“Hey May” He starts casually. “I wanted to talk to you about something I found out. Something about Peter.”

That makes her look at him with a frown “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, don’t worry, there is nothing wrong with him. It’s nothing bad. Or at least I don’t think it’s something bad. Well, that really depends on your definition of-“

“Tony, you are rambling. What is it?”

“Well, it’s just that after all this mess with HYDRA, Natasha came to me with some information she found on their servers, about me and Peter. At first I was like ‘is this real’ ‘how did this happen’ and I kinda started panicking and I wanted to talk to you about it first but then everything with the competition happened and somehow Peter heard it first but I don’t know if-“

“Stop, you lost me. What are you talking about?”

“There was this thing… You know, uh, this test they performed on Peter’s blood while he was taken by them and it said… They found that... uh…”

“Okay, wait. I can tell that whatever this is, it’s important.” She had never seen him like this before, he looked almost… nervous to say whatever he wanted to say “Just calm down. Take a deep breath and just say it”

“I’m Peter’s father”

Whatever she was expecting the man to say, that definitely wasn’t it. _“What?”_ She asked with an incredulous look on her face 

“You know how I told you they did some analysis in Peter’s blood? Well, whatever they did, they found that Peter and I shared some DNA, enough for me to be his biological father. So when I found out, I made a paternity test myself to confirm it and well, it came back positive. I wanted to talk to you about it first but then, next thing I knew, HYDRA was trying to take the kid and I really didn’t have the time to-”

“Wait, how is that even possible? Richard and Mary were always together” She started thinking about Richard and Mary’s relationship, trying to make sense of what Tony was telling her. When did Tony and Mary even meet? When could that have happened? She counted back the years and suddenly she remembered something “Oh my god” 

“What is it?”

“I just remembered… Richard and Mary, they had this big fight at the end of 2000, before having Peter. I don’t know what it was about. Richard went to talk with Ben about it. I think they didn’t talk for like a month and then they reconciled. I never really asked. Then, they had Peter and got married.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that in that month of their fight, when they didn’t talk to each other, you could have met Mary and well, I guess you know the rest of the details better than I do”

“But if she was pregnant with Peter by the time she got back with Richard, why didn’t she bother to tell me? I mean, I didn’t really remember her to be honest and I was probably not the best role model back then, but I would have liked to know. To be there for Peter.”

“I don’t know. And i guess we never will. Maybe she thought the baby could be Richard’s? But now that I think about it, Peter doesn’t really look like him at all. So she must have suspected at least. I never questioned it but here we are now. And he does look like you”

“So what do you think? About me being Peter’s father?”

“I’m not sure. I’m still wrapping my head around it. I can’t imagine how Peter is going to react. I mean you are literally his hero. He has looked up to you his entire life and to find out you are his father? This is something I wasn’t expecting at all. I always assumed both of Peter’s parents were dead… but I guess it makes sense.”

“What does?”

“You, being his father. You already take care of him and worry about him and just, I don’t know, I guess you had already been acting like one, before you realized your true connection. Honestly, everyone around you already thought you were like father and son. You two were the only ones who didn’t accept it”

“Does it bother you? I mean, you are the one who has been there for him and I don’t want to get between you two and-”

This sounded a lot when Peter was talking to her about seeing Tony as a father figure. Thinking they would be replacing people they loved instead of just having someone else to care about “Okay, I’m gonna stop you right there. No one is replacing anyone, alright? I’m sure Peter will be happy with you as a dad and I will always be his aunt, nothing will change that. We’ll just go one step at the time and figure it out. Together.”

After talking with May and having her reassurance that being Peter’s father was not terrible news for her, he went to talk with the team and left her with Peter, ordering FRIDAY to let him know if he woke up. Everyone had been working to leave this mess with HYDRA ready and be done with it and he knew they were all wondering about Peter’s wellbeing. So he headed to the common room to talk with whoever was in there. 

It was Steve, Rhodey and Natasha in the common room of the tower talking on a video call with Sam, Wanda and Vision who were on the compound. They were all talking about their respective missions, and stopped when they saw him get in the room. “How is Peter?” Steve is the first to ask.

“He is fine, I guess. Still hasn’t woken up. The doctors say it’s a matter of time. There isn’t anything they can really do, so…”

“How are you holding up?” His best friend asks him

“I don’t know. Not every day you find out you had a secret son who you had already met and is running around in spandex living the superhero life and 5 seconds later there is a HYDRA attack to take him away, so I still haven’t really thought it through.”

“Did you talk with May?”

“Yeah, I just came from that conversation. Talking to her about it made it feel more… real.”

“Okay, I’m confused, what are you talking about?” Steve asks with a frown

Tony just raises his eyebrows at Rhodey and Natasha. He had assumed they would have told the team about him and Peter. Apparently, they didn’t.

“You didn’t tell them?”

“We figured it wasn’t our story to tell.” Natasha answers 

“Tell us what?” Sam asks from the screen in the video call

Tony sighs before answering “The thing is that we found out that Peter is my kid. As in, biological kid.”

“WHAT?”

So they repeat the story all over again to team, what Natasha found and the paternity test. They all have a million questions and he does the best to answer them. It’s been almost an hour after they all fall in silence, without anything left to say, accepting the news of Tony being Peter’s dad. 

“It all makes sense now. Why he looked so familiar and similar to Tony. And now, I’m going to be the fun uncle” Rhodey finally says, breaking the silence

Surprisingly, Steve is the first to answer back “Yeah, you wish. That is going to be me, Uncle Steve”

“What? Back off. Forget about uncles. I’m Auntie Nat. I was the first to know. I have rights”

And so all the present Avengers start fighting for a place at being Peter’s uncle or aunt or sister and Tony honestly didn’t know what they were saying anymore. He never would have thought he would see the Avengers fighting for his son’s affection and attention. 

He is about to talk back when FRIDAY announces May is calling him to the Med Bay since Peter is showing signs of waking up. Everyone in the room stands up, as if to go join him to talk with Peter but he seats them all back down. “Okay, hold it. You all stay here. I’m going to talk with my kid and you are not invited” And with that he leaves the room to go find Peter. 

When he arrives, he sees Helen just walking out of the room Peter was in, she was probably checking his kid, so before entering the room, he asks her how he is doing and she assures him that he will be fine. So with that worry out of the way, he steps in the room Peter and May are in, so he can finally talk with Peter about the little elephant in the room. 

Peter is laying in the bed and you can tell he is not really happy about it. He never stays still. May is holding his arm, telling him part of the story of how he ended up in the Med Bay again. As soon as Tony enters the room, Peter seats up and talks “Mr. Stark! Uh, I mean, Tony! Hi! What happened?” 

Does that mean that Peter doesn’t remember the little reveal before he passed out?

“Hey kid. How are you feeling? You gave us all a scare back there. You’ve been asleep for a couple of days."

“Really? I’m fine. I don’t remember much. I was in the decathlon thing and then HYDRA was there? And I think I fought them? And then you, oh, you arrived and you saved me!”

“Well, not exactly. I mean, yeah that is pretty much what happened but, uh, are you sure you don’t remember anything else, like, from before you passed out?”

Peter seems to think for a couple of minutes before saying “I think… there is this thing I kinda have a vague memory of, but… no. It’s not possible.”

That catches Tony’s attention. Maybe he does remember something. Because he has no idea how to break the news to Peter if he doesn’t. “What is it?” He asks. 

“It’s nothing, Mr. Sta- Tony. I probably imagined it”

“Pete, maybe it did happen, Why don’t you talk about it and I’ll tell you if it was real or not” Tony was really hoping that Peter meant what he think he did, because if his kid was hallucinating, well, that was just another problem to add to a long list. 

“It’s just… I think Frank, that HYDRA agent, I remember him talking and implying that you were… uh… my father?” Before Tony could answer and tell him that he was in fact, his father, Peter just kept talking “Which now, saying it out loud, I realize it’s ridiculous right? I mean, it’s probably something my mind imagined”

“Peter” He looks at May and she gives him a small smile and nod to continue “It is true. I am your biological father”

Peter just stares at him in silence and finally says “ _What the fuck?”_

Okay. Not the reaction he expected. So before anything else, he once again is repeating the story of how everything happened to Peter, of how they found out from the test and confirmed it. Peter is silent during most of the explanation, looking at May here and there for reassurance. 

When Tony finishes the story and Peter is still silent, he feels like he has to explain himself. “Peter, I promise that I didn’t know. If i had known, I would have been there for you. I would have loved to watch you grow up and- I’m just… I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you”

That seems to take Peter out of his shook. “Wait no, Mr- uh, Tony? Wait, do I have to call you dad? I mean, it is hard enough not calling you Mr. Stark. I’m still getting used to ‘Tony’ and I don’t think I’ve ever used the word ‘dad’ actively in my life so I’m not sure-“

“Pete, you can call me whatever you want, okay? I know there is still a lot to figure out and I lot of things to make up for and-“ He answers but Peter interrupts him. 

“NO, I don’t blame you at all. You didn’t know and well, you are here now. It’s just, it’s kinda crazy. I mean, I never expected to find out something like this. I always assumed my parents were dead so it is a shook to find that not only my dad is still alive but it is Tony Stark, like, WHAT? So yeah, it’s a lot to take in” He looks at May and remembers their conversation about Tony feeling like a dad to him. She had been happy for him and even told him he should tell the man about it. Well, now it seemed like a good time to mention it “But I guess, I also saw you like a father figure already. And i’m glad that you are my dad”

Tony doesn’t know what he ever did to get such a wonderful, perfect and understanding kid. So he just stands up and goes to hug Peter. His son. Peter hugs him back and after a couple of minutes he feels May join them. He might have missed the first years of Peter’s life, but he was sure he would be there for everything that is coming. Every single second of it. He wouldn’t miss anything else. 

“How are you feeling?” He finally asks, remembering Peter had been unconscious for almost two days. “I mean, you have been through a lot these past few weeks. You threw yourself in front of a bomb, then you got shot by HYDRA and now an alien weapon. You see all these grey hairs? They are from you”

Peter laughs and it’s one of the best sounds Tony has heard lately ”I’m sure that is not true. They are because you are old”

Tony gasps and touches his chest to act offended “Excuse me, you little shit, I am not old. You are making me go prematurely gray jumping in front of danger at any time you can. You are killing me kid. But seriously, don’t you dare jump in front of me like that again. I was trying to save you.”

“Yeah but I couldn’t let them hurt you. Even with the armor, it could have injured you and I am fine, I have enhanced healing and-“

Tony rolls his eyes at him “Pete, your enhanced healing can’t be your excuse every time you do something stupid and dangerous. Besides, I’m the one who was to keep you safe. You are my kid”

Peter’s face lights up with a smile after hearing Tony –his dad- call him his kid. There is still a whole bunch of things to learn and discover about each other. New stories to make, memories to create and moments to share. But there is still time. They will deal with it. Together. 

 

THE END 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is it. I hope you liked it :) Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think. I love you 3000

**Author's Note:**

> I’m trying to post a chapter as soon as i can, i don't know for sure when that will be because I’m supposed to be studying for my finals so I don’t have much free time.  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it :) leave a comment or kudos if you liked it.  
> Thanks for reading!!


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